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Dr. Martina Hentschel Head of the Mesoscopic Systems Group /
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| Brief CV ( full CV and List of Publications ) |
1990-1997: Studies of Physics at Imperial College, London (UK) and the Technical University of Dresden (Germany), Diploma in 1997 1998-2001: PhD student at MPIPKS Dresden (supervisors: Klaus Richter, Peter Fulde), PhD in 2001 2202-2004: Postdoc at Duke University, Durham (North Carolina, USA) in Harold Baranger's group 2004-2006: Scientific Assistent at the University of Regensburg in Milena Grifoni's group Oct-Dec 2005: Invited Researcher at ATR (Kyoto, Japan) in Takahisa Harayama's group since 2006: Head of the Mesoscopic Systems Group (Emmy-Noether group) at MPIPKS Dresden |
| Latest Events |
International Conference and Seminar
New Frontiers of Quantum Chaos in Mesoscopic systems May 19-30, 2008, MPIPKS Dresden Organisers: Martina Hentschel (MPIPKS, Germany) Mark G. Raizen (University of Texas, USA) Jan Wiersig (Bremen, Germany) |
Asian-German Miniworkshop
Optical Microcavities:
From rays to waves. From passive to active. |
| Research Interests | For the broader audience: My research is on electronic and optical mesoscopic systems, i.e. on systems in between (meso) the macroscopic (classical) and microscopic (quantum mechanical) world. Their size is, as a characteristics, smaller than the decoherence length such that interference matters: Self-interference in ballistic systems makes the wavefunctions to be sensistive to the geometry of the system and very different from those of bulk samples. Interference plays also a crucial role in transport - weak localization and the Aharonov-Bohm effect a paradigms for this. Our research has strong links to the fields of condensed matter physics and classical nonlinear dynamics. We are interested, as a first topic and in a number of projects, in many-body effects in mesoscopic systems for electrons, namely how the signatures of the Kondo effect and Fermi edge singularities differ from the bulk results, and how do they depend on the geometry of the system. This last question concerns problems addressed in the field of quantum chaos - the quantum mechanical properties of classically chaotic (as well as integrable and mixed) systems. We investigate these issues also in a second topic that concerns optical microcavities, i.e. mesoscopic systems for light. The light is, unlike the electrons, not confined by hard walls, but rather by total internal reflection. Because of the possibility of refractive escape,those systems are intrinsically open. We are interested in how this openness affects the dynamics of the system in the ray and wave picture and find that there are considerable deviations. As an example, the reflection of light at curved interfaces in situations when the wavelength becomes comparable to the radius of curvature does not follow the usual specular reflection law. This has drastic effects for the ray-wave (classical-quantum) correspondence in those systems. More specifically: Projects presently under investigation -- Many-body effects in mesoscopic systems: Anderson orthogonality catastrophe and the x-ray edge problem in chaotic and regular systems and in graphene, interplay with Kondo physics, signatures of many-body effects in the photoabsorption cross section and transport quantities -- Kondo box problem: Mean-field approximation, chances and limitations -- Graphene: Parity anomaly, Berry phases -- Quantum chaos and semiclassics in optical microcavities: Goos-Hänchen effect and corrections to ray optics at curved dielectric interfaces, generalisation of the concept of Husimi functions to open systems, S-matrix method for optical systems, ray-wave correspondence -- Far-field characteristics of optical microcavities: Ray picture vs. wave simulations vs. experimental results for microlasers of spiral shape, possibility of directional emission -- Nonlinear optical transport: Similarities and differences between Kerr media and Bose Einstein condensates |
| Mesoscopic Systems Group |
In April 2006, I joined the MPIPKS Dresden as leader of the Mesoscopic Physics Group that, as this time, still had to be established. Presently, we are seven group members (two PhD students, four Postdocs, and myself). The group is built around the Emmy Noether Group ``Many-body effects in mesoscopic systems'' that is funded through the Emmy Noether Programme of the German Research Foundation (DFG) from 2006-2011. Another source of external funding is the Research Initiative (Forschergruppe) "Scattering Systems with Complex Dynamics" that is also funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) from 2007-2010.
The research interests of the group range from many-body effects in the mesocopic regime via questions of quantum chaos to optical microresonators.
More information available following the links on top and below. |
| Seminars and Research | Information on the Group Seminar series as well as on group members and research topics can be found via the Mesoscopic Systems Group home page . |
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CV
Publications
Mesoscopic Systems home
Personal links Emmy Noether Programme and DFG (-English) |