Douglas F. Brewer

Douglas Forbes Brewer (born May 1925 in Cardiff - † July 16, 2018 ) was a British low-temperature physicist and professor emeritus at the University of Sussex . He dealt experimentally with superfluidity ( helium-3 , helium-4).

Brewer attended school in Gloucester and studied physics at Oxford University from 1943 to 1945 and 1948 to 1950 (1945 to 1948 he was at GEC Research Laboratories). In 1953 he received his doctorate in Oxford with a dissertation in which the suppression of superfluid in unsaturated helium 4 films was shown. 1954 to 1956 he investigated with DO Edwards the linear subcritical region of the flow of superfluids in capillary tubes and showed their hydrodynamic nature. 1957 to 1959 he was an associate professor at Ohio State University . There he investigated the specific heat of helium 3 (where he discovered the linear temperature dependence) and its pressure dependence (which indicated a Fermi liquid) and observed the Pomeranchuk minimum in its melting curve (see Pomeranchuk effect ). In 1962 he became a professor at the University of Sussex, where he set up a low temperature group. There he investigated, among other things, helium 3 and 4 in porous media and showed the dependence of the specific heat in monatomic films made of helium 3 and 4 and observed two-dimensional roton excitations in double-layer helium 4 films. With measurements of the spin diffusion coefficient limited by a mean free path and the thermal conductivity in helium 3, it was shown that Lew Landau's quasiparticle concept corresponded to physical reality and was not a theoretical construction. ${\displaystyle T^{2}}$

He also discovered surface magnetism in helium 3 by measuring the NMR susceptibility of porous glasses.

He was secretary and later chairman of the IUPAP low temperature section and editor of the Progress in Low Temperature Physics series .

In 1999 he received the Fritz London Memorial Prize for his groundbreaking experimental discoveries on adsorbed helium films, including the lowering of the transition temperature and the dependence of the specific heat, and for his discovery of the linear temperature dependence of the specific heat of helium 3, the surface-enhanced NMR susceptibility of liquid helium 3 and its confirmation of the minimum in the melting curve of helium ${\displaystyle T^{2}}$ (laudation).

In 1996 he became a foreign member of the Georgian Academy of Sciences . In 1990 he organized the 19th International Conference on Low Temperature Physics (LT 19) in Brighton.

Web links

• Fritz London Prize 1999 for Brewer (pdf)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Jonathan Brewer, Colin Finn, Peter Ford: Obituary: Douglas Brewer (1925-2018). University of Sussex, October 9, 2018, accessed October 13, 2018 . 
2. ↑ Appreciation on the occasion of the Fritz London Prize, see web links