Günther Rüdiger

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Günther Rüdiger (* 1944 in Dresden ) is a German astrophysicist .

Life

Günther Rüdiger attended the EOS Dresden-Süd (today Gymnasium Dresden-Plauen ) until 1963 and studied astrophysics at the Friedrich Schiller University Jena until 1968 (University Prize 1967). He received his doctorate in 1972 from the German Academy of Sciences in Berlin under the supervision of Fritz Krause . After 1989, Rüdiger was one of the two authors of the "Memorandum on Non-University Research in Brandenburg" (1991), was a co-founder of the Brandenburg Research Initiative , a member of the first broadcasting council of the former East German Broadcasting Corporation Brandenburg (as a representative of science) and the city council in Potsdam (1998– 2003). Günther Rüdiger has been the Managing Editor of the world's oldest specialist journal Astronomische Nachrichten / Astronomical Notes (founded in 1821) since 2005 .

Scientific work

From 1992 to 2009 he headed the “Turbulence Astrophysics ” department in the Cosmic Magnetic Fields division of today's Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam (AIP). Here, together with Rainer Hollerbach , he developed the theory of magnetohydrodynamic experiments on the stability of magnetic fields in cylindrical Taylor-Couette flows that are filled with electrically conductive liquid metals. The experiments were carried out and evaluated in the Helmholtz Center Dresden Rossendorf (HZDR) under the direction of Gunter Gerbeth . The experimental proof of magneto-rotation instability was thus achieved . They demonstrate the ability of sufficiently strong azimuthal magnetic fields to generate such secondary currents as they are required in dynamo theory and to explain the formation of stars and planetary systems. For the experiment PROMISE (“PotsdamROssendorfMagneticInStabilityExperiment”) he and Frank Stefani from the Helmholtz Center Dresden Rossendorf received the Science Award : Society Needs Science of the Year 2008.

At the Astrophysical Observatory in Potsdam he formulated the fundamentals of the theory of angular momentum transport in stellar convection zones ("lambda effect"), with which the universal phenomenon of the differential rotation of the sun's surface and meanwhile 10,000 other sun-like stars find a simple explanation. In contrast to all turbulence cells in laboratories, the giant cells in solar turbulence do not behave according to the hypothesis of Joseph Boussinesq from 1897, but prefer to transport their angular momentum in the direction of faster rotation. Recent data from NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory mission directly support this basic assumption of the theory.

Together with Leonid Kitschatinow (Russia), it was found in 1997 that the very rapid transition of the laws of rotation between the core and the shell of the sun (the so-called tachocline region ) can be understood as the effect of the Lorentz force when a weak, fossil and unobservable magnetic field of a few milligauss of strength exists.

Books

  • G. Rüdiger: Differential Rotation and Stellar Convection - Sun and Solar-type Stars (1989), Gordon & Breach New York, Akademie-Verlag Berlin
  • G. Rüdiger, R. Hollerbach: The Magnetic Universe - Geophysical and Astrophysical Dynamo Theory (2004) Wiley-VCH
  • G. Rüdiger, LL Kitchatinov, R. Hollerbach: Magnetic Processes in Astrophysics - Theory, Simulations, Experiments (2013) Wiley-VCH

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ F. Stefani, Th. Gundrum, G. Gerbeth et al .: Experimental evidence for Magnetorotational Instability in a Taylor-Couette flow under the influence of a helical magnetic field Phys. Rev. Lett. 97 (2006) 4502
  2. ↑ T. Reinhold, A. Reiners, G. Basri: Rotation and differential rotation of active Kepler stars Astron. Astrophys. 560 (2013) A4
  3. ^ J. Boussinesq: Theory de l'ecoulement tourbillonnant et tumultueux des liquides, Comptes Rendus de l'Acad. des Sciences , Gauthier-Villars et fils, 1897 Paris
  4. ^ DH Hathaway, L. Upton, O. Colegrove: Giant convection cells found on the Sun Science 342 (2013) 1217
  5. ↑ G. Rüdiger, LL Kitchatinov: The slender solar tachocline Astronomische Nachrichten 318 (1997) 273

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Rüdiger, Günther
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German astrophysicist
DATE OF BIRTH 1944
PLACE OF BIRTH Dresden