Dieter Lüst (born 21 September 1956 in

Chicago Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of Unite ...

) is a German physicist, full professor for mathematical

physics Physics is the scientific study of matter, its Elementary particle, fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge whi ...

at the

Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich The Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (simply University of Munich, LMU or LMU Munich; ) is a public university, public research university in Munich, Bavaria, Germany. Originally established as the University of Ingolstadt in 1472 by Duke ...

since 2004 and a director of the Max Planck Institute for Physics in

Munich Munich is the capital and most populous city of Bavaria, Germany. As of 30 November 2024, its population was 1,604,384, making it the third-largest city in Germany after Berlin and Hamburg. Munich is the largest city in Germany that is no ...

. His research focusses on

string theory In physics, string theory is a theoretical framework in which the point-like particles of particle physics are replaced by one-dimensional objects called strings. String theory describes how these strings propagate through space and intera ...

. In 2000, he received the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize of the

Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft The German Research Foundation ( ; DFG ) is a German research funding organization, which functions as a self-governing institution for the promotion of science and research in the Federal Republic of Germany. In 2019, the DFG had a funding bu ...

, which is the highest honour awarded in German research.

Education

Dieter's parents,

Reimar Lüst Reimar Lüst (; 25 March 1923 – 31 March 2020) was a German astrophysicist. He worked in European space science from its beginning, as the scientific director of the European Space Research Organisation (ESRO) from 1962 and as Director Genera ...

and Rhea Lüst, were also physicists. He studied physics from 1976 to 1982 at the

Technical University of Munich The Technical University of Munich (TUM or TU Munich; ) is a public research university in Munich, Bavaria, Germany. It specializes in engineering, technology, medicine, and applied and natural sciences. Established in 1868 by King Ludwig II ...

before receiving a doctorate from the

in 1985 and

habilitation Habilitation is the highest university degree, or the procedure by which it is achieved, in Germany, France, Italy, Poland and some other European and non-English-speaking countries. The candidate fulfills a university's set criteria of excelle ...

was completed in 1990.

Career

Lüst performed his postgrad work at the

California Institute of Technology The California Institute of Technology (branded as Caltech) is a private research university in Pasadena, California, United States. The university is responsible for many modern scientific advancements and is among a small group of institutes ...

and Max Planck Institute for Physics. He was a Fellow at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) in

Geneva Geneva ( , ; ) ; ; . is the List of cities in Switzerland, second-most populous city in Switzerland and the most populous in French-speaking Romandy. Situated in the southwest of the country, where the Rhône exits Lake Geneva, it is the ca ...

between 1988 and 1990, and was there again with a Heisenberg fellowship in 1990/93. In 1993, he took up a chair in quantum field theory at the

Humboldt University of Berlin The Humboldt University of Berlin (, abbreviated HU Berlin) is a public research university in the central borough of Mitte in Berlin, Germany. The university was established by Frederick William III on the initiative of Wilhelm von Humbol ...

. He has been an external scientific member of the

Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics The Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics (Albert Einstein Institute) is a Max Planck Institute whose research is aimed at investigating Einstein's theory of relativity and beyond: Mathematics, quantum gravity, astrophysical relativity ...

in Golm. With Anamaría Font, Luis E. Ibáñez, and Fernando Quevedo they proposed a weak-strong duality conjecture which introduced the concept of

S-duality In theoretical physics, S-duality (short for strong–weak duality, or Sen duality) is an equivalence of two physical theories, which may be either quantum field theories or string theories. S-duality is useful for doing calculations in theore ...

in 1990. He has been an editor of '' Fortschritte der Physik'' and a co-editor of '' Journal of High Energy Physics''.

Awards

* 2000: Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize * 2000: Member of the

Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities The Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities (), abbreviated BBAW, is the official academic society for the natural sciences and humanities for the German states of Berlin and Brandenburg. Housed in three locations in and around Ber ...

* 2005: Gay-Lussac-Humboldt-Prize

References

External links

Max-Planck-Institute for Physics (Werner-Heisenberg-Institute)Dieter Lüst's homepage at the LMU
Living people 21st-century German physicists Academic staff of the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize winners 1956 births People associated with CERN 20th-century German physicists {{Germany-physicist-stub