Walter Selke

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Walter Selke (born May 11, 1947 in Hanover ) is a German physicist .

Life

After graduating from the Leibniz School in Hanover and the Master of Science in Physics at the Georgia Institute of Technology , Walter Selke obtained his diploma in 1972 and his doctoral degree under Hans-Jürgen Mikeska at the University of Hanover in early 1975 (dissertation: Theory of the dynamics of lattice anisotropic Heisenberg magnets at Phase transition ). This was followed by postdoctoral positions at the University of Saarbrücken , the Cornell University and Boston University . In 1980 Selke obtained his habilitation in theoretical physics at the University of Saarbrücken . In 1981 he became the owner of an independent and permanent research position at the Institute for Solid State Research (IFF) at Forschungszentrum Jülich . In 1985/1986 he held a similar position at the IBM research center in Rüschlikon near Zurich. In 1982 he was re- qualified at the University of Cologne , where he first taught as a private lecturer and then as an associate professor . Since 1996 he has been a university professor for theoretical physics at RWTH Aachen University and since 2008 a member of the Jülich Aachen Research Alliance (JARA). He retired in 2012.

His main field of work is statistical physics , with a special focus on magnetism and surface physics . He is particularly known for his work on commensurable and incommensurable spatially modulated superstructures (especially ANNNI models ) in the solid state , with applications in magnetic, ferroelectric, alloy and adsorbate systems.

Walter Selke has published around 150 publications, including several review articles. His co-authors include Kurt Binder , Michael E. Fisher and Valeri Leonidowitsch Pokrowski . He has (co) organized numerous conferences, in particular a series of meetings he initiated with physicists from the Landau Institute for Theoretical Physics , which began in 1988 and ended in 1997.

In 2008, Selke was named "Outstanding Referee" by the American Physical Society . In 2009 he was visiting professor at the University of New South Wales in Sydney.

After his retirement, Selke u. a. with the history of his hometown . For example, with the support of the historian Christian Heppner, who works in the Hanover City Archives , he was able to correct the house where the artist Kurt Schwitters was born, which had often been incorrectly located, to the current address, Rumannstrasse 8 . Her research also focused on the biochemist and Nobel Prize winner Otto Meyerhof and the writer Frank Wedekind .

Fonts (selection)

  • JS Wang, W. Selke, VS Dotsenko, VB Andreichenko, The critical behavior of the 2-dimensional dilute Ising magnet. In: Physica A 164, 1990, pp. 221-239, doi : 10.1016 / 0378-4371 (90) 90196-Y .
  • W.Selke, Spatially modulated structures in systems with competing interactions . In: Phase transitions and critical phenomena , Eds. C. Domb and JL Lebowitz , vol. 15, p.1-72 (1992) ISBN 0122203151

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Conrad von Meding: Aus der Stadt / So far assumed the wrong building / Schwitters` birthplace is somewhere else ... , illustrated article on the page of the Hannoversche Allgemeine Zeitung of May 27, 2016, last accessed on October 20, 2018
  2. ↑ Walter Selke, Christian Heppner: The house where Kurt Schwitters was born in Hanover , in: Hannoversche Geschichtsblätter , New Series, Vol. 70 (2016), pp. 66–71
personal data
SURNAME Selke, Walter
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German physicist, professor for theoretical physics at RWTH Aachen
DATE OF BIRTH May 11, 1947
PLACE OF BIRTH Hanover