Karl-Henning Rehren (born 1956 in

Celle Celle () is a town and capital of the district of Celle (district), Celle in Lower Saxony, in north-central Germany. The town is situated on the banks of the river Aller (Germany), Aller, a tributary of the Weser, and has a population of about ...

) is a German

physicist A physicist is a scientist who specializes in the field of physics, which encompasses the interactions of matter and energy at all length and time scales in the physical universe. Physicists generally are interested in the root or ultimate cau ...

who focuses on

algebraic quantum field theory Algebraic quantum field theory (AQFT) is an application to local quantum physics of C*-algebra theory. Also referred to as the Haag–Kastler axiomatic framework for quantum field theory, because it was introduced by . The axioms are stated in ter ...

Biography

Rehren studied physics in

Heidelberg Heidelberg (; ; ) is the List of cities in Baden-Württemberg by population, fifth-largest city in the States of Germany, German state of Baden-Württemberg, and with a population of about 163,000, of which roughly a quarter consists of studen ...

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

and

Freiburg Freiburg im Breisgau or simply Freiburg is the List of cities in Baden-Württemberg by population, fourth-largest city of the German state of Baden-Württemberg after Stuttgart, Mannheim and Karlsruhe. Its built-up area has a population of abou ...

. In Freiburg he received his

PhD A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of graduate study and original research. The name of the deg ...

(advisor Klaus Pohlmeyer) in 1984. Habilitation 1991 in Berlin. Since 1997 he teaches physics in

Göttingen Göttingen (, ; ; ) is a college town, university city in Lower Saxony, central Germany, the Capital (political), capital of Göttingen (district), the eponymous district. The River Leine runs through it. According to the 2022 German census, t ...

. He became notable outside his field, especially among string theorists, in 1999 when he discovered the

Algebraic holography Algebraic holography, also sometimes called Rehren duality, is an attempt to understand the holographic principle of quantum gravity within the framework of algebraic quantum field theory, due to Karl-Henning Rehren. It is sometimes described as an ...

(also called '' Rehren duality''), a relation between quantum field theories AdS_d+1 and conformal quantum field theories on d-dimensional

Minkowski spacetime In physics, Minkowski space (or Minkowski spacetime) () is the main mathematical description of spacetime in the absence of gravitation. It combines inertial space and time manifolds into a four-dimensional model. The model helps show how a s ...

, which is similar in scope to the

Holographic principle The holographic principle is a property of string theories and a supposed property of quantum gravity that states that the description of a volume of space can be thought of as encoded on a lower-dimensional boundary to the region – such as a ...

. This work has no direct relation to the more well known Maldacena duality, but refers to the more general statement of the

AdS/CFT correspondence In theoretical physics, the anti-de Sitter/conformal field theory correspondence (frequently abbreviated as AdS/CFT) is a conjectured relationship between two kinds of physical theories. On one side are anti-de Sitter spaces (AdS) that are used ...

Edward Witten Edward Witten (born August 26, 1951) is an American theoretical physics, theoretical physicist known for his contributions to string theory, topological quantum field theory, and various areas of mathematics. He is a professor emeritus in the sc ...

. It is generally accepted that the relation found by Rehren does not provide a proof for Witten's conjecture and is thus considered an independent result.

Selected publications

* *

References

External links

* . * .
Author page on INSPIRE-HEP
* * 1956 births Living people 20th-century German physicists Heidelberg University alumni University of Paris alumni University of Freiburg alumni Academic staff of the University of Göttingen People from Celle 21st-century German physicists {{Germany-physicist-stub

Biography

Selected publications

See also

References

External links