Eric J. Heller

Eric J. Heller
Eric Heller (2005)
Born	(1946-01-10) January 10, 1946 (age 71)
Residence	Cambridge, MA
Nationality	American
Fields	Theoretical Chemistry Physics
Institutions	Harvard, UCLA, Los Alamos National Laboratory, University of Washington
Alma mater	Harvard University
Doctoral advisor	William P. Reinhardt
Doctoral students	Gregory A. Fiete
Known for	Pioneering a time-dependent perspective of molecular spectroscopy, semiclassical methods, especially wave packet dynamics, quant chaos, including the discovery and explanation of wavefunction scars.
Notable awards	National Academy of Sciences (2006), American Chemical Society Award in Theoretical Chemistry (2005).

Eric J. "Rick" Heller (born January 10, 1946) is the Abbott and James Lawrence Professor of Chemistry and Professor of Physics at Harvard University. Heller is known for his work on time dependent quantum mechanics, and also for producing digital art based on the results of his numerical calculations.

Heller is principally known for pioneering a time-dependent wavepacket picture of quantum mechanics, which allowed the excited-state dynamics of large quantum mechanical systems to be understood without calculating eigenstates. Heller's work laid the foundations for a theoretical understanding of . Heller has also made seminal contributions to methodology, suggesting the technique called "frozen Gaussians"—today the most widely used semiclassical initial value representation (IVR) method of wavepacket propagation.

In physics, Heller is known for his work on quantum chaos, particularly on scar theory. Heller's more recent work has focused on the study of two dimensional electron gases, quantum mirages in quantum corrals, scattering theory, few-body quantum mechanics, semiclassical methods, and freak waves in the ocean. Many (though not all) of these studies make use of the time-dependent quantum mechanics ideas from his earlier work.

Heller is an elected member of the International Academy of Quantum Molecular Science, the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the American Philosophical Society. Heller has received the American Chemical Society Award in Theoretical Chemistry (2005), the Astor Fellowship at Oxford (2005) and the Joseph O. Hirschfelder Prize (2003). Heller has been a Sloan Fellow, a Humboldt Fellow, a fellow of the American Physical Society, and a Guggenheim Fellow, and is the coauthor of over 260 publications.