Johann Rafelski

Johann Rafelski ( born May 19, 1950 in Kraków ) is a German -born theoretical physicist.

Life

Rafelski was born in Krakow, from where the family moved in 1964 to Frankfurt am Main. Rafelski studied after graduating from the Goethe Gymnasium Frankfurt 1968-1971 Physics at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University Frankfurt am Main. After that, he was a research assistant at Walter Greiner in Frankfurt, where he received his doctorate in 1973 ( about quantum electrodynamics in strong fields and the thereby occurring positron production ). From 1973 he was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Philadelphia (with Abraham Klein ) at Argonne National Laboratory in Chicago ( with Michael Danos by NIST and John W. Clark), the heavy-ion accelerator at GSI Darmstadt (1977 ) and 1977 at CERN in Geneva (with John Stewart Bell and Rolf Hagedorn ).

From 1979 to 1983 Rafelski was Professor of Theoretical Physics at the Goethe University, where he worked closely with Hagedorn and Berndt Mueller. One of his students was there later professor in Dresden, Gerhard Soff. After that he had until 1987 a Chair of Theoretical Physics at the University of Cape Town, where he established the Institute of Theoretical Physics and Astrophysics. From 1987 he was professor of physics at the University of Arizona and the Arizona Research Laboratory. He has been a visiting scientist at the National Institute of Standards and Technology ( NIST) in Washington DC, at the Max Planck Institute for Physics in Munich (1992 ), at the GSI in Darmstadt and was a visiting professor at the University of Paris VII ( 1993/1994 and 2004/2005), where he collaborated with Jean Letessier (via quark-gluon plasmas ). He was also a consultant at GSI and at Los Alamos National Laboratory ( LAMPF, the " Mesonenfabrik " in Los Alamos ) and is a regular guest scientist at CERN.

He was married from 1973 with Helga Betz, who died in 2000 and with whom he has two children. Since 2003, he is married to Victoria Gros bag.

Work

Rafelski dealt among other things with the formation of the quark- gluon plasma in heavy ion collisions ( deconfinement and evidence of the formation of particles with strangeness quantum number, education hadrons, hadronisation from the plasma as a model for similar processes in the early universe ), Quantum electrodynamics of strong fields (for example, ultra-short laser pulses ), and the theory of muon catalysis of fusion reactions. About those table top fusion experiments (compared to the bulk of research experiments on tokamaks ), he worked in Los Alamos with Steven Jones. Rafelski also dealt with artificial intelligence ( neural networks ).

Writings

Self- Consistent Vielteilchengleichungen for electrons and muons and their effects in muonischen atoms. Dissertation. University of Frankfurt am Main in 1973.
With Lewis P. Fulcher, Walter Greiner super heavy elements and at upper limit to the electric field strength, Physical Review Letters, vol 27, S.958 -961, 1971
With Berndt Müller, Walter Greiner The Charged Vacuum in overcritical fields, Nuclear Physics B, Bd.68, 1974, S.585 -604
With Abraham Klein, Lewis P. Fulcher fermion and boson interaction with Arbitrarily strong external fields, Physics Reports, Vol 38, 1978, p 227-361
With Abraham Klein, Lewis P. Fulcher Decay of the Vacuum, Scientific American, Bd.341, June 1979
Walter Greiner and Berndt Müller: Quantum electrodynamics of strong fields. Springer, Berlin, 1985, ISBN 3-540-13404-2.
With Berndt Müller: The structure of the vacuum. A dialogue on the nothing. German, Thun, 1985, ISBN 3-87144-888-5, English translation, pdf file
With G. Mourou, T. Tajima: The light -pulse horizon, CERN Courier, February 2009

With Michael Danos: Perspectives in high energy nuclear collisions. NBS, Washington, GSI, Darmstadt 1983.
Formation and observables of the quark-gluon plasma, Physics Reports, Vol 88, 1982, p 331-346
With Peter Koch, Berndt Müller: Strangeness in Relativistic Heavy Ion Collisions, Physics Reports, Vol 142, 1986, p.167 -262
Hans Gutbrod (ed.): Particle production in highly excited matter. Plenum Press, NATO Science Series B, Bd.303, 1993.
With Jean Letessier, Hans Gutbrod (ed.): Hot Hadronic matter: theory and experiment. In honor of R.Hagedorns 75th Birthday Plenum Press, NATO Science Series B, Bd.346, 1995.
Editor and co-author: Strangeness in Hadronic matter, AIP Conf.Proc, Bd.340, 1995.
With Jean Letessier: hadron and quark-gluon plasma. Cambridge University Press 2002
With J. Kapusta, B. Müller ( editors and authors ): Quark -gluon plasma. Theoretical Foundations. Elsevier 2003.
With Emanuele Quercigh: A strange quark plasma, Physics World, Vol 13, October 2000, p 37
With Hans -Thomas Elze, E. Ferreira, T. Kodama, RL Thews ( editors and authors ): New States of Matter in Hadronic Interactions, AIP Conference Proceedings, Bd.631, 2002
With Torleif Ericson: The tale of the Hagedorn temperature, CERN Courier, September 2003

With Steven Jones, Hendrik Monkhorst (ed.): Muon Catalyzed Fusion meeting. Sanibel Iceland, Florida in 1988. American Institute of Physics 1989.
With Steven Jones Cold nuclear fusion, Scientific American, Bd.257, May 1987, p.84

With Walter Greiner: Special Theory of Relativity. German, Thun 1984, ISBN 3-87144-711-0.
With Michael Danos: Pocketbook of mathematical functions. German, Thun 1984.
John W. Clark, J. V. Winston: Brain without mind: Computer simulation of neural networks with modifiable neuronal interactions, Physics Reports, Volume 123, 1985, p.215 -273

Goethe-Gymnasium, Frankfurt Abraham Klein (physicist) Name Authority File

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