Lutz Polley 

Dr. rer. nat.

Wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter
Privatdozent für Theoretische Physik

Institut für Physik ­
Universität Oldenburg
26111 Oldenburg

E-mail: polleyuni-oldenburg.de

Tel: +49 441 798 3462
Fax: +49 441 798 3201
Office: W2 3-343

• Teaching 

  Theoretische Physik 1 (Mechanik, 2-Fächer-Bachelor)

  Theoretische Physik 2 (Elektrodynamik, Master of Education)

  Mathematical Methods for Physics and Engineering I
  

  Research
  

  Objectification in Quantum Theory

  In the many-worlds view of an observer's physical evolution, I argue that the dimension of an "experiential Hilbert space" (containing all degrees of freedom that make up an observer's experience) towards the ends of decoherent branches should be distributed like a power-law variate exponentiated. Order statistics of extreme and next-to-extreme values then implies that most of the dimension is located in a single branch. See arXiv or DPG Talk Munich 2009 (PDF)
  

  Propagation of fermions (Susskind fermions) on random close-packed lattices 

  If the points of 3-dimensional space are restricted to the sites of a simple cubic lattice, it follows from the (arguably) simplest possible assumptions on a quantum particle on such a structure  that either (a) the propagation is through first derivatives of the wavefunction and relativistic, or (b) is through second derivatives, slower by a factor (lattice spacing)/(length scale of wave function), and nonrelativistic.  This has been known for some time (see arXiv).

  But that finding has turned out to be highly non-universal --- it does not hold for other types of lattice. Of particular interest would be lattices in which the sites (physically, some kind of ball with the dimension of a Planck length) are packed as densely as possible, that is, the lattice should be of the type face-centered cubic, or hexagonal close-packed, or random close-packed. For fcc and hcp, it can be shown that propagation through first derivatives is inconsistent with the lattice symmetries. For a random close-packed lattice, all that can be said for the time being is that the hopping amplitudes, which encode the propagation, can only occur in six distinct configurations. See status report (PDF)