J. Michael Kosterlitz

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Michael Kosterlitz

John Michael Kosterlitz (born June 22, 1943 in Aberdeen , Scotland ) is a British-American physicist . In 2016 he received the Nobel Prize in Physics (together with David J. Thouless and F. Duncan M. Haldane ) for research on the theory of different topological phases of matter .

Life

J. Michael Kosterlitz is particularly known for the first example of topological phase transitions with David J. Thouless (1973), the Kosterlitz-Thouless transition , which has unusual properties and is, for example, not a second order phase transition. It occurs in a two-dimensional spin model, the XY model , and can be understood as a phase transition in which pairs of vortex excitations (these vortices or eddies are topologically stable excitations in the XY model) are broken up. In addition, Kosterlitz has researched numerous phenomena in statistical physics , for example growth processes on crystal surfaces , spin glasses and the localization of electrons.

Michael Kosterlitz was born as the son of the biochemist Hans Walter Kosterlitz in Aberdeen , Scotland . He received his BA at Gonville and Caius College of Cambridge University in 1965, and the following year the MA in 1969 received his doctorate he became D.Phil. at Oxford University . This was followed by stays as a postdoc a . a. at Cornell University and the University of Birmingham . In 1974 he was called to Birmingham as a lecturer . He has been Professor of Physics at Brown University since 1982 and Distinguished Professor at the Korea Institute for Advanced Study since 2016 .

In 1981 his research was awarded the Maxwell Medal of the Institute of Physics and in 2000 the Lars Onsager Prize of the American Physical Society (APS). In 1992 he became a Fellow of the APS. In 2007 he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and in 2017 to the National Academy of Sciences .

As a top mountaineer, Kosterlitz managed various difficult routes and first ascents in the 1960s, including "Fessura Kosterlitz", a well-known crack boulder in the Valle dell'Orco , or the rarely repeated "Via degli Inglesi" (English guide ) on Piz Badile .

Selected publications

  • JM Kosterlitz and DJ Thouless: Ordering, metastability, and phase transitions in two-dimensional systems. In: Journal of Physics C-Solid State Physics. Volume 6, 1973, p. 1181.
  • JM Kosterlitz: Critical properties of the two-dimensional XY-model. In: Journal of Physics C - Solid State Physics. Volume 7, 1974, p. 1046.
  • JM Kim and JM Kosterlitz: Growth in a restricted solid-on-solid model. In: Physical Review Letters. Volume 62, 1989, p. 2289.
  • F. Drolet, KR Elder, M. Grant and JM Kosterlitz: Phase-field Modeling of Eutectic Growth. In: Physical Review. Series E, Volume 61, 2000, p. 6705.

Web links

Commons : Michael Kosterlitz  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory/nobel-physics-prize-awarded-topology-work-42549291 http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory/nobel-physics-prize-awarded- topology-work-42549291 ( Memento from October 9, 2016 in the Internet Archive )
  2. ↑ https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/2016/
  3. ↑ http://www.alpine-club.org.uk/ac2/news-club/269-mike-kosterlitz-2016-nobel-prize-winner
  4. ↑ https://www.planetmountain.com/en/news/climbing/the-children-of-fessura-kosterlitz-the-legendary-crack-climb-in-valle-dell-orco.html
  5. ↑ http://www.alpinejournal.org.uk/Contents/Contents_1969_files/AJ%201969%20-viii-6%20Isherwood%20Badile.pdf
personal data
SURNAME Kosterlitz, J. Michael
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Kosterlitz, John Michael (full name); Kosterlitz, John M.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British-American physicist
DATE OF BIRTH June 22, 1943
PLACE OF BIRTH Aberdeen