 | This article includes a list ofgeneral references, butit lacks sufficient correspondinginline citations. Please help toimprove this article byintroducing more precise citations.(February 2013) (Learn how and when to remove this message) |
Julius E. Wess | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | (1934-12-05)5 December 1934 |
| Died | 8 August 2007(2007-08-08) (aged 72) |
| Nationality | Austrian |
| Alma mater | University of Vienna |
| Known for | Wess-Zumino model Wess–Zumino–Witten model Wess–Zumino consistency condition Thirring–Wess model Coleman–Wess–Zumino construction for nonlinearsymmetries |
| Awards | Leibniz Prize (1986) Max Planck Medal (1987) Heineman Prize (1988) Wigner medal (1992) |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Theoretical physics |
| Doctoral advisor | Hans Thirring |
| Doctoral students | Hermann Nicolai |
Julius Erich Wess (5 December 1934 – 8 August 2007) was anAustrian theoreticalphysicist noted as the co-inventor of theWess–Zumino model andWess–Zumino–Witten model in the field ofsupersymmetry andconformal field theory. He was also a recipient of theMax Planck medal, theWigner medal, theGottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize, theHeineman Prize, and of several honorarydoctorates.
Wess was born inOberwölz Stadt, a small town in theAustrian state ofStyria.In 1957[1]he received hisPh.D. inVienna, where he was a student ofHans Thirring. His Ph.D. examiner was acclaimed quantum mechanics physicistErwin Schrödinger. After working atCERN inSwitzerland and at the Courant Institute ofNew York University,United States, he became a professor at theUniversity of Karlsruhe. In later life, Wess was professor at theLudwig Maximilian University of Munich. After his retirement he worked atDESY inHamburg.
His doctoral students includeHermann Nicolai.
Julius Wess died at the age of 72 in Hamburg, following a stroke.[2]
His early work centered oneffective field theories forhadrons, especially the interactions connectingpions andkaons withprotons andneutrons. His 1969 papers withSidney Coleman,Curtis Callan, andZumino detailed the mathematical structure of theories withspontaneously broken symmetries. The papers laid much of the foundation for phenomenological hadron physics, but they have had even wider application. They are still being cited today.
Wess’s most highly cited work is the 1971 paper with Zumino on anomalies in effective field theories. Anomalies occur when quantum effects violate classical symmetries, giving rise to physical phenomena such as the decay of a neutral pion into two photons. Wess and Zumino showed that anomalous terms in effective Lagrangians must obey certain consistency relations. Those conditions are so important that the terms are now named after them.
Despite the fame of that early work, Wess will always be known for the 1974 papers in which he and Zumino constructed the first renormalizable supersymmetric quantum field theory in four dimensions and exhibited its nonrenormalization properties at one loop. Their work ignited an explosion of interest in supersymmetry, a concept that has come to dominate much of modern theoretical physics. His textbook on supersymmetry, with one of us (Bagger), is still a standard reference after 25 years.[3]
