Christof Wetterich (born in 1952) is a German

theoretical physicist Theoretical physics is a branch of physics that employs mathematical models and abstractions of physical objects and systems to rationalize, explain and predict natural phenomena. This is in contrast to experimental physics, which uses experimen ...

Biography

Born in

Freiburg Freiburg im Breisgau (; abbreviated as Freiburg i. Br. or Freiburg i. B.; Low Alemannic: ''Friburg im Brisgau''), commonly referred to as Freiburg, is an independent city in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. With a population of about 230,000 (as o ...

, Wetterich studied physics in Paris, Cologne and Freiburg, where he received his PhD in 1979. He worked at

CERN The European Organization for Nuclear Research, known as CERN (; ; ), is an intergovernmental organization that operates the largest particle physics laboratory in the world. Established in 1954, it is based in a northwestern suburb of Gene ...

in Geneva and DESY in Hamburg. Since 1992 he has a chair for theoretical physics at

Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg } Heidelberg University, officially the Ruprecht Karl University of Heidelberg, (german: Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg; la, Universitas Ruperto Carola Heidelbergensis) is a public research university in Heidelberg, Baden-Württemberg, ...

. His major research interests are

cosmology Cosmology () is a branch of physics and metaphysics dealing with the nature of the universe. The term ''cosmology'' was first used in English in 1656 in Thomas Blount (lexicographer), Thomas Blount's ''Glossographia'', and in 1731 taken up in ...

and

particle physics Particle physics or high energy physics is the study of fundamental particles and forces that constitute matter and radiation. The fundamental particles in the universe are classified in the Standard Model as fermions (matter particles) an ...

. The development of the theoretical method of functional renormalization by Wetterich has found applications in many areas of physics, e.g. it provides a suitable framework to study

quantum gravity Quantum gravity (QG) is a field of theoretical physics that seeks to describe gravity according to the principles of quantum mechanics; it deals with environments in which neither gravitational nor quantum effects can be ignored, such as in the vi ...

(

asymptotic safety Asymptotic safety (sometimes also referred to as nonperturbative renormalizability) is a concept in quantum field theory which aims at finding a consistent and predictive quantum theory of the gravitational field. Its key ingredient is a nontr ...

), Yang-Mills theories and it was also useful in non-relativistic quantum systems like the BCS to

BEC BEC may refer to: As an acronym House * Bapatla Engineering College * Basaveshwar Engineering College * Bengal Engineering College Curriculum * Business Environment and Concepts, a section of Uniform Certified Public Accountant Examination * Bus ...

crossover where it ''bridges'' the two theories in a unified theoretical language. Wetterich is best known for his proposal of dynamical

dark energy In physical cosmology and astronomy, dark energy is an unknown form of energy that affects the universe on the largest scales. The first observational evidence for its existence came from measurements of supernovas, which showed that the univer ...

or quintessence in 1987. This could explain the observed accelerated expansion of the Universe. He has done fundamental work for the theoretical understanding of tiny masses of neutrinos The method of functional renormalization relates macro physical structures to micro physical laws in a continuous way. Its modern form is based on the exact Wetterich equation.

Honours and awards

Wetterich received the Max-Planck Research Prize in 2005. Since 2006 he is member of the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences.Portrait
at th

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References

External links

Christof Wetterich's homepage at the Institute for Theoretical Physics at Heidelberg University

Scientific publications of Christof Wetterich
on

INSPIRE-HEP INSPIRE-HEP is an open access digital library for the field of high energy physics (HEP). It is the successor of the Stanford Physics Information Retrieval System (SPIRES) database, the main literature database for high energy physics since the 1970 ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Wetterich, Christof 1952 births Living people 20th-century German physicists Theoretical physicists People associated with CERN