The L. D. Landau Institute for Theoretical Physics of the Russian Academy of Sciences is a research institution, located in the small town of Chernogolovka near Moscow (there is also a subdivision in Moscow). Its main fields of research are
The Landau Institute was formed in 1965 to keep the Landau school alive after the tragic car accident of Lev D. Landau. Since its foundation, the institute grew rapidly to about one hundred scientists, becoming one of the worldwide best-known and leading institutes for theoretical physics.
Unlike many other scientific centers in Russia, the Landau Institute had the strength to cope with the crisis of the nineties in the last century. Although about one half of the scientists accepted positions at leading scientific centers and universities abroad, most of them kept ties with their home institute, forming a scientific network in the tradition of the Landau school and supporting young theoretical physicists in the Landau Institute.
Up to 1992, the institute was headed by Isaak Markovich Khalatnikov, who was then replaced by Vladimir E. Zakharov. Its numerous prominent scientists, mathematicians as well as physicists, include the Nobel laureate Alexei Alexeyevich Abrikosov as well as Igor Dzyaloshinsky , Lev Gor'kov, Vladimir Gribov, Anatoly Larkin, Sergei Novikov, Alexander Polyakov, Mark Azbel, Valery Pokrovsky, Emmanuel Rashba, Alexei Starobinsky, Alexei Kitaev, Vadim Berezinskii, Gregory Volovik, Leonid Levitov, and Yakov G. Sinai.