Holger Fehske

Prof. Dr. rer. nat. habil. Holger Fehske
Group leader
Institute of Physics
Felix-Hausdorff-Str. 6
D-17489 Greifswald
Room B205
Phone +49 (0)3834 420-4761
fehskephysik.uni-greifswaldde
Research interests
I’m a theoretical physicist, with research interests mostly in quantum matter exhibiting strong correlations and/or a nontrivial geometry/topology. Thereby the focus is on (partly exotic) ground-state, spectral and dynamical properties of many-particle quantum systems, such as solids, optical lattices, photonic crystals, spin chains, quantum liquids and condensates, nanostructures, quantum dots, clusters, and bounded plasmas, with potential applications in the rapidly developing fields of nano electronics, spintronics, plasmonics and photonics.
In particular, in our group we investigate
- the interplay of spin, charge, lattice and orbital degrees of freedom in strongly correlated materials materials (heavy fermions, high-temperature superconducting cuprates, colossal magnetoresistive manganites, charge-ordered nickelates,...)
- order, quantum phase transitions and criticality in low-dimensional electron/spin-phonon coupled systems (Peierls & spin-Peierls instabilties, phase separation, intrinsic localized vibrational modes, Luttinger liquid behaviour, spin-charge-separation, metal-insulator & insulator-insulator transitions,...)
- transport properties in coupled fermion-boson systems
- symmetry-protected states in topological materials
- electronic and optical properties of graphene-based nanostructures
- disorder effects (Anderson localization, percolation, frustration, ,…)
- magnetism, magnetic short-range order, and spin glas behaviour
- polaron, bipolaron & exciton formation (self-trapping transition, optical response, polaronic superlattices, excitonic insulators, Bose-Einstein condensation,...)
- cavity quantum electrodynamics (strong light-matter interaction, development of non-classical light and entanglement)
- optomechanics (route to chaos)
- equlibration and thermalisation
- the plasma surface interface.
In all projects, we try to gain insight from a (rather) microscopic point of view. To this end, we use, develop and exploit analytical and numerical techniques of modern quantum statistical physics, such as
- functional integral (slave-field) methods,
- Green's-function projection approaches,
- unitary transformation schemes,
- exact Lanczos & Jacobi-Davidson diagonalizations,
- Chebyshev/kernel-polynomial expansion & maximum entropy methods,
- density matrix renormalisation group techniques,
- quantum state diffusion and Markov approaches.
Various present-day supercomputers are used in the numerical evaluation, with modern programming concepts making allowance for scalability, numerical reliability, fault tolerance, holistic performance, and power engineering.
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Education
1962-1972 | Primary and secondary school in Gera |
1972-1974 | Grammar school in Gera |
1974 | Abitur (university entrance examination) |
Training and Professional Positions
1976-1981 | Study of physics at the University of Leipzig |
1981 | Diploma thesis in physics |
1981-1984 | Research scholarship of the University of Leipzig |
1984 | Doctor of Physics (PhD thesis), University of Leipzig |
1996 | Habilitation, University Bayreuth |
1997 | Venia legendi for Theoretical Physics |
1984-1988 | Research Associate at the University Leipzig |
Mar 1989 | Leaving the former German Democratic Republic |
1989-1993 | Research Associate at the University Bayreuth |
1993-1997 | Assistant Lecturer at the University Bayreuth |
1998/1999 | Guest Professor at the University of Saarland |
1997-2002 | Lecturer at the University Bayreuth |
2002 | Full Professor at the Ernst-Moritz-Arndt University Greifswald - Complex Quantum Systems - |
Dec 2002 | Turned down a professorship in Theoretical Physics at the Technical University Graz |
2004-2017 | Member of the Faculty Board (mathematics - natural sciences) |
2005-2016 | Member of the executive committee of the Collaborative Research Center Transregio 24 "Fundamentals of Complex Plasmas" |
Feb 2005 | Gordon Godfrey Visiting Professorship at the University of New South Wales, Sydney |
2005-2009 | Vice-chairman of the scientific board of the Institute of Low Temperature Plasma Physics |
Jan-Mar 2011 | Professorial Visiting Fellow, School of Physics, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia |
2012-2017 | Club member of the Leibniz Institute for Plasma Science and Technology |
2012-2017 | Member of the executive committee of the International Helmholtz Graduate School for Plasma Physics |
2012-2017 | Executive Director Institute of Physics |
2011- | Member of the Steering Commitee of the Supercomputing Centre Stuttgart |
Longer Visits Abroad:
Los Alamos National Laboratory, Czech Academy of Sciences Prague, University of New South Wales Sydney |