Eric J. Heller

Who is Eric J. Heller?

Eric J. "Rick" Heller 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 femtochemistry. Heller has also made seminal contributions to methodology, suggesting the technique called "frozen Gaussians"—today the most widely used semiclassical initial value representation 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 of these studies make use of the time-dependent quantum mechanics ideas from his earlier work.