Biographical Sketch:
Prior to becoming a Research Affiliate at Yale, Berndt Mueller was a Yale Visiting Professor in 2022. He has also held Visiting Professorships at Kyoto University (Japan, 2006), and at Vanderbilt University (1980).
He was a Professor of Physics from 1976-1989 at Goethe University in Frankfurt (Germany) and is currently the James B. Duke Distinguished Professor of Physics at Duke University (1996-Present; he was Professor of Physics at Duke from 1990-1996). Mueller was the Dean of the Natural Sciences, Trinity College of Arts and Sciences (Duke University) from 1999-2004.
He is the former Associate Laboratory Director for Nuclear and Particle Physics at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory (2013-2020).
Research:
Professor Mueller’s research interests currently focus on emergent properties of the quark-gluon plasma, such as how it thermalizes, how its very low shear viscosity is generated, how it interacts with pairs of heavy quarks (quarkonia), how it reacts to magnetic fields, and how experimentally accessible probes can tell us more about these properties. He has also taken an active interest in the science that can be done at a future electron-ion collider and helped convince the Department of Energy to initiate the construction of such a facility. More peripheral research interests include the viscous dynamics of matter falling into a black hole, the question of “thermalization” in the absence of a heat bath, and the possible physics of a world with two time dimensions.
Education:
Ph.D., Goethe University, Frankfurt Am Main (Germany) (1973)
Honors & Awards:
- 2021 — Herman Feshbach Prize in Theoretical Nuclear Physics
- 2007 — Jesse Beams Award from the American Physical Society
- 1998 — Senior US-Scientist Award of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation
- 1994 — Fellow of the American Physical Society
- 1975 — R¨ontgen Prize of the University of Giessen
Selected Publications:
Books:
- with Walter Greiner: Theoretische Physik, Ein Lehr- und Übungsbuch, Band 8: Eichtheorieder schwachen Wechselwirkung. Harri Deutsch 1986. English: Gauge theory of weak interactions. Springer 2000. 4th ed. 2009.
- with J. Kapusta, Johann Rafelski (publisher and co-author): Quark-Gluon-Plasma. Theoretical Foundations. Elsevier BV, Amsterdam, The Netherlands 2003.
- with Robert Pisarski: Kay Kay Gee Day : Klaus Kinder-Geiger Memorial Workshop on RHIC Physics and Beyond, Upton, New York, October 1998, American Institute of Physics, 1999.
- with Joachim Reinhardt, Michael Stricklandt: Neural Networks. An introduction. Springer 1991. 2nd ed. 1995.
- with Walter Greiner: Quantum Mechanics 2 - Symmetries. Harri Deutsch. English: Quantum Mechanics: Symmetries. Springer 1989. 2nd. ed. 1994.
- with T.S. Biro, S. G. Matinyan: Chaos and gauge field theory. World Scientific 1994.
- with H.M. Fried (Editor): Vacuum structure in intense fields. Plenary Press 1991. (NATO Advanced Study Institute, Cargese 1990)
- with Johann Rafelski: Die Struktur des Vakuums. Ein Dialog über das ‘Nichts. Harri Deutsch 1985. English: The Structured Vacuum - thinking about nothing.
- The physics of the quark gluon plasma. Springer 1985.
- with Walter Greiner, Johann Rafelski: Quantum Electrodynamics of strong fields. Springer 1985.