Jürgen Meyer-ter-Vehn (born 16 February 1940 in

Berlin, Germany Berlin ( ; ) is the capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the highest population within its city limits of any city in the European Union. The city is also one of the states of ...

) 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 experi ...

who specializes in laser-plasma interactions at the Max Planck Institute for Quantum Optics. He published under the name Meyer until 1973. Meyer-ter-Vehn's work involved examining the physical principles of inertial fusion with lasers and heavy ion beams. In the 2000s, he dealt with relativistic laser-plasma interaction (where, for example, due to the relativistic increase in mass, new effects occur such as induced transparency and self-focusing with channel formation) and with the formation of plasma blocks by ultra-short terawatt laser pulses for laser fusion (fast ignition). He also further developed the concept of the wakefield accelerators for generating extremely high

electric field An electric field (sometimes called E-field) is a field (physics), physical field that surrounds electrically charged particles such as electrons. In classical electromagnetism, the electric field of a single charge (or group of charges) descri ...

s by laser-induced charge separation in plasma by John M. Dawson (a possible accelerator concept).

Life

From 1959, Meyer-ter-Vehn studied physics at the

University of Münster The University of Münster (, until 2023 , WWU) is a public research university located in the city of Münster, North Rhine-Westphalia in Germany. With more than 43,000 students and over 120 fields of study in 15 departments, it is Germany's ...

and the

Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich The Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (simply University of Munich, LMU or LMU Munich; ) is a public university, public research university in Munich, Bavaria, Germany. Originally established as the University of Ingolstadt in 1472 by Duke ...

as a scholarship holder of the German National Academic Foundation, where he obtained his diploma in 1966. In 1969, he received his doctorate in theoretical

nuclear physics Nuclear physics is the field of physics that studies atomic nuclei and their constituents and interactions, in addition to the study of other forms of nuclear matter. Nuclear physics should not be confused with atomic physics, which studies th ...

from the Technical University of Munich. He researched at the Technical University of Munich, the

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL, Berkeley Lab) is a Federally funded research and development centers, federally funded research and development center in the Berkeley Hills, hills of Berkeley, California, United States. Established i ...

, the

Paul Scherrer Institute The Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI) is a multi-disciplinary research institute for natural and engineering sciences in Switzerland. It is located in the Canton of Aargau in the municipalities Villigen and Würenlingen on either side of the Ri ...

and the Jülich Research Center. In 1976, he habilitated at the Technical University of Munich, where he has been an associate professor since 1997. From 1979, he was in the laser research group of the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics in Munich, from which the Max Planck Institute for Quantum Optics emerged in 1981. Until 2005, he was group leader for laser plasma theory. Until the end of the 1970s, he mainly dealt with theoretical nuclear physics. He was married to Helga Meyer-ter-Vehn (died 2011) and has two sons, Tobias Meyer-ter-Vehn and Moritz Meyer-ter-Vehn, and four grand-daughters, Rebekka, Lili, Clara, and Sophie.

Honors and awards

In 1997, Meyer-ter-Vehn received the American Nuclear Society's Edward Teller Award. In 2009, he received the Hannes Alfvén Prize from the European Physical Society for ''"his seminal theoretical work in the fields of inertial confinement fusion (ICF), relativistic laser–plasma interaction and laser wakefield electron acceleration".''

Books

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Meyer-ter-Vehn, Jürgen 1940 births Living people 20th-century German physicists Plasma physicists University of Münster alumni Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich alumni Technical University of Munich alumni