Anatoly Alexeyevich Logunov (born 30.12.1926) is a Soviet theoretical physicist, academician (1972; a corresponding member from 1968) and vice-president (from 1974). He was born in the village of Obsharovka, Kuibyshev Region. He graduated from Moscow University (1951); in 1954—56 he worked at the same university, in 1956—63 he was deputy director of the Laboratory of Theoretical Physics of the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research (Dubna), and in 1963—74 director of the Institute of High Energy Physics (Serpukhov). From 1978 he has been rector of Moscow University.
His research concerned quantum field theory and the physics of elementary particles (the theory of dispersion relations, the study of deep inelastic interactions of hadrons, and the regularities of the multiple production of particles in strong interactions). He developed general methods that make it possible to justify the applicability of dispersion relations to a wide class of processes, and was the first to formulate dispersion relations for the photoproduction of mesons and for processes involving virtual particles. This research became the basis of the description of the strong interaction of particles at low and medium energies.
He proposed a new and effective method of treating the relativistic two-body problem, which has found wide application in quantum electrodynamics and in the description of the scattering of hadrons at high energies, together with the corresponding dynamical equations (the Logunov—Tavkhelidze quasipotential equations). He developed (1967—68) a new approach to the problem of the multiple production of particles at high energies, bringing into consideration a special class of multiple processes, the so-called inclusive reactions. He established a number of important relations between the characteristics of these processes at extremely high energies. Together with Yu. D. Prokoshkin and others he established (1969) the scaling invariance of the cross sections for the production of hadrons at high energies. He took part in the design and commissioning (1967) of the Serpukhov proton synchrotron at 70 billion eV (Lenin Prize, 1970). In 1973, jointly with others, he was awarded the USSR State Prize for a series of works on the photoproduction of pions on nucleons.
Hero of Socialist Labour (1980).