Helmut Herminghaus

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Helmut Joachim Herminghaus (* December 17, 1928 ; † May 6, 2020 ) was a German experimental physicist and for many years head of the "Accelerator Working Group" at the Institute for Nuclear Physics at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz .

Live and act

Helmut Herminghaus studied physics in Frankfurt am Main and did his doctorate there in 1962 with the topic " An extension of the line theory to the waveguide of a helical linear accelerator ". He then went to the German Electron Synchrotron (DESY) in Hamburg as a postdoc from 1962 to 1963 .

In 1963, Hans Ehrenberg appointed Herminghaus as the first experimental acceleration physicist to the Institute for Nuclear Physics at the University of Mainz, which was newly founded in 1957, to manage the construction and use of the 300 MeV electron linear accelerator . In cooperation with the technical staff of the institute and a group of students, he made significant improvements to the system, which went into operation in 1967.

Herminghaus completed his habilitation in Mainz in 1974 and was appointed to a professorship for applied research in 1983.

As early as 1972 Herminghaus had already started considering how the acceleration at room temperature could be achieved without the very high cooling effort required by conventional accelerator tubes with their superconducting material. His approach was initially to add a “stretcher ring”, a design that was implemented at ELSA in Bonn and at NIKHEF in Amsterdam. He then developed a novel concept, the racetrack microton principle. By traversing the same route multiple times, the energy loss is reduced to a fraction of the usual, and electrons of high energies are still provided with an effective direct current beam. The proposal presented in 1975 initially met with skeptical experts. Therefore, the feasibility of the principle had to be demonstrated step by step with a small test facility, which was convincing. Motivated by a vision of the assistant at the time, Berthold Schoch, Herminghaus succeeded in realizing the new concept for the first time in collaboration with Karl-Heinz Kaiser. The work finally resulted in the three-stage Mainz microtron (MAMI). The first two stages (MAMI-A) went into operation in 1983, and from 1991 MAMI-B was the most powerful electron accelerator of its kind at the time. With this system, Herminghaus helped the institute to a leading position in the field of hadron physics .

After Helmut Herminghaus left, Hartmut Backe was appointed to his professorship in 1992 , while Karl-Heinz Kaiser took over the management of the accelerator group at the institute.

Helmut Herminghaus last lived in Weiler and died at the age of 91 while hiking in the neighboring Binger Forest .

Works

  • An extension of the line theory to the waveguide of a helical linear accelerator ; Frankfurt a. M., 1962 (dissertation), DNB 481134131

Honors

  • 2017: "Horst Klein Research Award for outstanding scientists in the field of accelerator physics".
  • 2018: "Medal of Honor of the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz" for his services to the construction of the Mainz microtron on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of work with electron accelerators in Mainz.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Obituaries of Helmut Herminghaus. In: VRM grief. VRM GmbH & Co. KG, Mainz, May 16, 2020, accessed on June 1, 2020 .
  2. ↑ DNB 481134131 Dissertation in the catalog of the German National Library. Accessed June 1, 2020
  3. ↑ a b c history of the institute. Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, Institute for Nuclear Physics, accessed on June 1, 2020 .
  4. ↑ Herminghaus, Helmut. In: Kürschner's German Scholars Calendar Online. degruyter.com, accessed on May 31, 2020 (founded by Joseph Kürschner , constantly updated, restricted online edition).
  5. ↑ a b Helmut Herminghaus honored with the Horst Klein Research Prize. Award for his groundbreaking vision for the Mainz electron accelerator MAMI. Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (press release), May 3, 2017, accessed on June 1, 2020 .
  6. ^ Obituary notice Helmut Herminghaus, Allgemeine Zeitung Mainz, May 16, 2020, p. 30
  7. ↑ 50 years of experiments with accelerators in Mainz. Helmut Herminghaus and Karl-Heinz Kaiser receive the JGU Medal of Honor for their services in setting up the Mainz Microtron (MAMI). Mainz Science Alliance, February 16, 2018, accessed on June 1, 2020 .
personal data
SURNAME Herminghaus, Helmut
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Herminghaus, Helmut Joachim
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German experimental physicist and longstanding head of the accelerator working group at the Institute for Nuclear Physics in Mainz
DATE OF BIRTH December 17, 1928
DATE OF DEATH May 6, 2020