Franz Joachim Wegner is emeritus professor for theoretical physics at the University of Heidelberg.
Education
Franz Wegner attained a doctorate in 1968 with thesis advisor Wilhelm Brenig at the Technical University Munich with the thesis, "Zum Heisenberg-Modell im paramagnetischen Bereich und am kritischen Punkt" ("On the Heisenberg model within the paramagnetic range and at the critical point").
Subsequently, he did research with a post-doctoral position at Forschungszentrum Jülich, in the group of Herbert Wagner and at Brown University with Leo Kadanoff. Since 1974 he is a professor at Heidelberg.
Career
The emphasis of his scientific work is statistical physics, in particular the theory of phase transitions and the renormalization group. The eponymous "Wegner exponent" is of fundamental importance for the purpose of describing corrections to asymptotic scale invariance in close proximity to phase transitions. Wegner also "invented" the foundational lattice gauge theoretical models.
The method developed from Wegner"s foundational work is nowadays intensively used in simulations of quantum chromodynamics.
Membership
Heidelberg Academy for Sciences and Humanities.
