Reinhard Oehme

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Reinhard Oehme (born January 26, 1928 in Wiesbaden , † between September 29 and October 4, 2010 in Chicago ) was a German-American theoretical physicist . Oehme was known for the discovery of the non-preservation of charge conjugation in connection with parity violation , for the formulation and the proof of hadronic dispersion relations, for the "Edge of the Wedge Theorem" in the function theory with several complex variables, the Goldberger-Miyazawa-Oehme -Sum rule, the reduction of quantum field theories , the Oehme-Zimmermann super-convergence relations for correlation functions in gauge theories , and for many other contributions.

biography

Reinhard Oehme was born as the son of Reinhold Oehme and Katharina Kraus. After graduating from the Rheingau-Gymnasium in Geisenheim am Rhein - the first school near Wiesbaden to open after the war - he began studying physics and mathematics at the Goethe University in Frankfurt and received his diploma as a student from Erwin Madelung in 1948 . Then he went to Göttingen to the Max Planck Institute for Physics as a student of Werner Heisenberg , who was also a professor at the University of Göttingen . At the beginning of 1951, Oehme received his doctorate from Heisenberg at the University of Göttingen . In the same year Heisenberg asked him to travel to Brazil with Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker , in connection with the establishment of the "Instituto de Física Teórica" ​​(IFT) in São Paulo, the Heisenberg, probably in view of the tense situation in Europe, considered for a possible branch of the Max Planck Institute. On November 5, 1952, he married Mafalda Pisani in São Paulo . She was born in Berlin as the daughter of Giacopo Pisani and Wanda d'Alfonso. She died in Chicago in August 2004. The marriage remained childless. Oehme came back from Brazil to his assistant position at the Max Planck Institute in Göttingen. In 1954, Heisenberg recommended Oehme to his friend Enrico Fermi for a research associate position at the University of Chicago , where he worked at the Institute for Nuclear Studies . The main findings from this time are described under work . In the fall of 1956, Oehme went to Princeton as a member of the Institute for Advanced Study , and returned in 1958 to the University of Chicago as a professor in the Department of Physics and the Enrico Fermi Institute for Nuclear Studies. In 1998 he became Professor Emeritus .

Visiting professorships

As a visiting scientist

Prizes and awards

  • 1963–1964 Guggenheim Fellow
  • 1974 Humboldt Prize
  • 1976, 1988 Fellow, Japanese Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS)
  • The University of Chicago awards The Enrico Fermi, Robert R. McCormick & Mafalda and Reinhard Oehme Postdoctoral Research Fellowships, named after Oehme

Work

Dispersion relations, GMO sum rule, and "Edge of the Wedge Theorem"

In 1954 in Chicago, Oehme studied the analytical properties of scattering amplitudes in quantum field theories. In doing so he found the essential fact that particle-particle and antiparticle-particle amplitudes are linked to one another through analytical continuation in the complex level of energy variables. These results then led to his work with Marvin Goldberger and Hironari Miyazawa on dispersion relations for the scattering of pi mesons on nucleons , which also contains the Goldberger-Miyazawa-Oehme sum rule. The relations agreed well with the experimental results of the Fermi group in Chicago, the Lindenbaum group in Brookhaven, and other experiments. The GMO sum rule is often used in the analysis of the pion-nucleon system.

Oehme has published a more formal derivation of forward dispersion relations in the context of local quantum field theory. The proof also applies to gauge theories with “confinement”. In order to be able to use the far-reaching results of the theory of functions with several complex variables for the proof of dispersion relations for amplitudes with finite momentum transfer, as well as for the general analytical properties of Green's functions , Oehme formulated and proved a fundamental theorem. He called it "Edge of the Wedge Theorem" ("Wedge Theorem"). This work was carried out at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, in collaboration with Hans Joachim Bremermann and John Gerald Taylor .

On the basis of microscopic causality and properties of the spectrum, the theorem leads to a primary regularity domain, which can then be enlarged by means of analytical continuation. Oehme first presented these results in the winter semester 1956/57 at the Princeton University Colloquium. An independent, different and extensive proof of non-forward dispersion relations was also published by Nikolai Nikolajewitsch Bogolyubov and co-workers. The "Edge of the Wedge Theorem" has many applications. For example, it can be used to show that if the Lorentz invariance , micro-causality ( locality ) and positivity of the energy are violated (spontaneously) , the Lorentz invariance of the energy-momentum spectrum is ensured. Oehme also formulated dispersion relations for nucleon-nucleon scattering in collaboration with Marvin Goldberger and Yoichiro Nambu .

Charge conjugation as a non-invariant

On August 7, 1956, Oehme wrote a letter to Chen Ning Yang in which he shows that the weak interactions must violate the conservation of C ( charge conjugation ) in the event of a positive result in the β-decay polarization experiment. Since the preservation of P ( parity ) leads to the same conditions as C, Oehme concluded that C and P must both be violated in order to obtain a corresponding asymmetry. In the Brookhaven preprint BNL 2819 of their work on parity, Tsung-Dao Lee and Yang assumed that C would be preserved. Oehme's result shows that at the level of ordinary, weak interactions, CP is the relevant symmetry, and not C and P individually. For example, CP is sufficient to do justice to the equality of the decay times of positive and negative pi mesons. This situation found by Oehme is fundamental for the later experiments on the problem of CP maintenance, and for the discovery of CP violation at a much lower interaction strength by James Cronin and Val Fitch .

As indicated above, Oehme's letter is printed in the book Selected Papers by CN Yang . On the basis of the letter Lee , Oehme and Yang wrote a more detailed study of the connections between possible non-maintenance of P, C and T, and also described applications on the K - anti-K - complex. The work written prior to the experimental discovery of P and C non-conservation also mentions the possibility of T (time reversal) non-conservation and, assuming CPT conservation, CP. In any case, the work is essential for the description of the CP experiments. The non-conservation of C is a fundamental requirement for the asymmetry of matter and anti-matter in the universe.

Propagators and OZ - super convergence relations

On the basis of the analytical properties and methods of the renormalization group , Oehme, in collaboration with Wolfhart Zimmermann , carried out a general structural analysis of Eichfeld propagators. For theories in which the number of matter fields (flavors) is below a fixed limit, he found super-convergence relations. These "Oehme-Zimmermann relations" give a connection between the properties of the theory at high and low energies (large and small distances, asymptotic freedom and confinement). The results for propagators are essentially only dependent on general principles.

Reduction of quantum field theories

As a general method for reducing the number of parameters in quantum field theories, Oehme and Zimmermann introduced a theory of coupling reduction. The method is an application of the renormalization group, and accordingly more general than the derivation from symmetries. In some cases there are solutions of the reduction equations that do not directly correspond to a new symmetry, but come from another characteristic property of the theory. In certain multi-parameter theories one obtains supersymmetrical theories through reduction , and thus has examples of the occurrence of this symmetry without having explicitly introduced it beforehand. The reduction method has many uses, theoretical as well as phenomenological

more comments

Other contributions by Oehme deal with complex angular momentum, increasing cross sections, broken symmetries, current algebras and weak interactions and others.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Ulrich E. Schröder: Biography of Madelung. (No longer available online.) In: Physicists and astronomers in Frankfurt. Archived from the original on February 12, 2012 . ;, see third to last paragraph: As Hund was able to determine, Madelung had particularly capable students and employees immediately after the war. The following physicists should be mentioned here, whose later successful careers became known: ..., Reinhard Oehme (Professor for Theoretical Physics in Chicago) ...
  2. ↑ Peter Freund : A Passion for Discovery. In: World Scientific. 2007, p. 13, ISBN 981-270-646-1 .
  3. ↑ Reinhard Oehme: Generation of photons when nucleons collide. In: Journal of Physics. Volume 129, 1951, p. 573. Received: February 28, 1951. (Thanks to Heisenberg at the end of the abstract).
  4. ^ Instituto de Física Teórica: Instituição: Histórico. unesp.br, accessed November 4, 2018 (Portuguese).
  5. ↑ Past Member: Reinhard Oehme. ias.edu, accessed November 4, 2018 .
  6. ↑ Reinhard Oehme. In: Guggenheim Fellows. gf.org, accessed on November 4, 2018 (with picture).
  7. ↑ Honors by Faculty, U of Chicago (October 2008) ( Memento of October 11, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
  8. ^ Postdoctoral Fellowships. Accessed November 4, 2018 .
  9. ^ ML Goldberger, H. Miyazawa and R. Oehme: Application of Dispersion Relations to Pion-Nucleon Scattering. In: Physical Review. Volume 99, 1955, pp. 986-988
  10. ↑ Reinhard Oehme: Dispersion Relations for Pion-Nucleon Scattering I. In: Physical Review. Volume 100, 1955, pp. 1503-1512
  11. ↑ For example: VV Abaev, P. Metsä, ME Sainio: The Goldberger-Miyazawa-Oehme sum rule revisited. In: The European Physical Journal A. Volume 32, 2007, p. 321, arxiv : 0704.3167 .
  12. ^ Reinhard Oehme: Causality and Dispersion Relations for the Scattering of Mesons by Fixed Nucleons. In: Il Nuovo Cimento. Volume 4, 1956, p. 1316; Appendix: Proof of Relativistic Forward Dispersion Relations .
  13. ↑ Reinhard Oehme: Lecture at the 11th International Conference on Mathematical Physics, Paris, France, 18. – 23. July 1994, Analytic structure of amplitudes in gauge theories with confinement . In: International Journal of Modern Physics A . tape 10 , 1995, p. 1995-2014 , arxiv : hep-th / 9412040 .
  14. ^ HJ Bremermann, R. Oehme and JG Taylor: Une Demonstration possible des relations de dispersion , presented at the conference "Les Problemes Mathematiques de la Theory Quantique des Champs", Colloques Internationaux du CNRS, Lille, 3. – 8. June 1957, published in Colloques Internationaux du Center National de la Recherche Scientifique. Volume LXXV, 1959, p. 169.
  15. ^ HJ Bremermann, R. Oehme and JG Taylor: Proof of Dispersion Relations in Quantized Field Theories. In: Physical Review. Volume 109, 1958, p. 2178; Appendix: The Edge of the Wedge Theorem . (with references to previous work by NN Bogoliubov and others)
  16. ↑ NN Bogoliubov and DV Shirkov: Introduction to the Theory of Quantized Fields. John Wiley & Sons, 1959, ISBN 0-471-04223-4
  17. ^ Hans-Jürgen Borchers : Locality and Covariance of the Spectrum. In: Fizika. Volume 17, 1985, pp. 289-304, and literature cited there.
  18. ^ Marvin L. Goldberger, Yoichiro Nambu and Reinhard Oehme: Dispersion Relations for Nucleon-Nucleon Scattering. In: Annals of Physics (NY). Volume 2, 1956, p. 226. bibcode : 1957AnPhy ... 2..226G . Corresponding to the above-mentioned results of Oehme on the analytical continuation of amplitudes, these relations contain integrals over the total nucleon-nucleon and antinucleon-nucleon cross sections, but also over absolute squares of annihilation amplitudes.
  19. ^ CN Yang: Selected papers 1945–1980, with commentary (Chen Ning Yang) . WH Freeman, San Francisco 1983, ISBN 0-7167-1406-X , pp. 32-33
  20. ↑ Due to their Z - and p -dependence, Coulomb perturbations of the electron wave functions can be separated experimentally.
  21. ↑ The results of the letter apply accordingly to pi-meson decays, where no Coulomb perturbations occur. (A trivial calculation error for this case was noticed shortly after the letter was sent).
  22. ^ JH Christensen, James Cronin, VF Fitch and R. Turlay: Evidence for the 2π Decay of the K20 Meson. In: Physical Review Letters. Volume 13, 1964, pp. 138-140
  23. ↑ James W. Cronin: CP symmetry violation — the search for its origin. In: Reviews of Modern Physics. Volume 53, 1981, pp. 373-383, Nobel lecture, December 1980.
  24. ↑ TD Lee, Reinhard Oehme, Chen-Ning Yang: Remarks on Possible Noninvariance under Time Reversal and Charge Conjugation . In: Physical Review . tape 106 , 1957, pp. 340-345 , doi : 10.1103 / PhysRev.106.340 .
  25. ^ Andrei Sakharov in: Pisma Zh. Eksp. Teor. Fiz. Volume 5, 1967, p. 32
  26. ↑ Reinhard Oehme, Wolfhart Zimmermann: Quark And Gluon Propagators in Quantum Chromodynamics . In: Physical Review D . tape 21 , 1980, pp. 471 , doi : 10.1103 / PhysRevD.21.471 .
  27. ↑ Reinhard Oehme, Wolfhart Zimmermann: Gauge Field Propagator and the Number Of Fermion Fields . In: Physical Review D . tape 21 , 1980, pp. 1661 , doi : 10.1103 / PhysRevD.21.1661 .
  28. ↑ Reinhard Oehme: Renormalization group, BRST cohomology and the problem of confinement . In: Physical Review D . tape 42 , 1990, pp. 4209-4221 , doi : 10.1103 / PhysRevD.42.4209 . (This work contains references to work by K. Nishijima and others.)
  29. ↑ Reinhard Oehme, Wolfhart Zimmermann: Relation Between Effective Couplings for Asymptotically Free Models . In: Communications in Mathematical Physics . tape 97 , 1985, pp. 569 , doi : 10.1007 / BF01221218 .
  30. ↑ Reinhard Oehme, Klaus Sibold , Wolfhart Zimmermann: Renormalization Group Equations with vanishing lowest order of the Primary Beta Function . In: Physics Letters B . tape 147 , 1984, pp. 115 , doi : 10.1016 / 0370-2693 (84) 90604-X . Oehme, Sibold, Zimmermann: Construction of gauge theories with a single coupling parameter for Yang-Mills and matter fields . In: Physics Letters B . tape 153 , 1985, pp. 142 , doi : 10.1016 / 0370-2693 (85) 91416-9 .
  31. ^ R. Oehme: Reduction and reparametrization of Quantum Field Theories . In: Progress of Theoretical Physics Suppl. Volume 86 , 1986, pp. 215 , doi : 10.1143 / PTPS.86.215 . This work contains further references.
  32. ^ W. Zimmermann: Reduction in the Number of Coupling Parameters . In: Communications in Mathematical Physics . tape 97 , 1985, pp. 211 .
  33. ↑ Reinhard Oehme, lecture at the Ringberg Symposium on Quantum Field Theory, Ringberg Castle, 21. – 24. June 1998, Reduction of coupling parameters and duality. In: Lecture Notes in Physics. Volume 558, 2000, pp. 136-156.
  34. ^ J. Kubo, M. Mondragon and G. Zoupanos: Unification beyond GUTs: Gauge Yukawa unification. In: Acta Physica Polonica B. Volume 27, 1997, pp. 3911-3944, arxiv : hep-ph / 9703289 , lectures at the Cracow School of Theoretical Physics, 1996 and the Bruno Pontecorvo School on Elementary Particle Physics, 1996.
  35. ↑ For example: Reinhard Oehme: High Energy Scattering and Relativistic Dispersion Theory. Ravenna Lectures, in Eugene Wigner (Ed.): Dispersion Relations and their Connection with Causality. Academic Press, New York 1964, pp. 167-256.
  36. ↑ Reinhard Oehme: Rising Cross Sections. In: Springer Tracts in Modern Physics. Volume 61, 1972, p. 109, lecture given in July 1971 at DESY, before increasing cross-sections were found experimentally.
  37. ↑ For example: Reinhard Oehme: Current Algebras and the Suppression of Leptonic Meson Decays with DeltaS = 1 . In: Physical Review Letters. Volume 16, 1966, pp. 215-217.
personal data
SURNAME Oehme, Reinhard
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German-American theoretical physicist
DATE OF BIRTH January 26, 1928
PLACE OF BIRTH Wiesbaden
DATE OF DEATH between September 29, 2010 and October 4, 2010
Place of death Chicago