Berndt Mueller, James B. Duke Distinguished Professor  

Berndt Mueller

Office Location: 261-D Physics Bldg, Science Drive, Durham, NC 27708-0305
Email Address: muller@phy.duke.edu
Web Page: http://www.phy.duke.edu/~muller/

Specialties:
Theoretical nuclear physics

Education:
Ph.D., Goethe Universitat Frankfurt Am Main (Germany), 1973
Dr. phil. nat., J.W. Goethe Universität, Frankfurt, Germany, 1973
Dipl. phys., J.W. Goethe Universität, Frankfurt, Germany, 1972
M.S., Goethe Universitat Frankfurt Am Main (Germany), 1972

Research Categories: Theoretical Nuclear and Particle Physics

Research Description: Prof. Mueller's work focuses on nuclear matter at extreme energy density. Quantum chromodynamics, the fundamental theory of nuclear forces, predicts that nuclear matter dissolves into quarks and gluons, the elementary constituents of protons and neutrons, when a critical density or temperature is exceeded. He and his collaborators are theoretically studying the properties of this "quark-gluon plasma", its formation, and its detection in high-energy nuclear collisions. His other research interests include symmetry violating processes in the very early universe and the chaotic dynamics of elementary particle fields. Prof. Mueller is the coauthor of textbooks on the Physics of the Quark-Gluon Plasma, on Symmetry Principles in Quantum Mechanics, on Weak Interactions, and on Neural Networks.

Recent Publications   (More Publications)   (search)

  1. Ebner, L; Müller, B; Schäfer, A; Schmotzer, L; Seidl, C; Yao, X, Magic Barrier before Thermalization., Physical review letters, vol. 136 no. 23 (June, 2026), pp. 230403, American Physical Society (APS) [doi]  [abs].
  2. Horn, D; Müller, B; Yao, X, Gluon Entanglement Entropy inside a Nucleon: A Toy Model (May, Preprint, 2026) .
  3. Chen, V; Müller, B; Yao, X, Minimally Truncated SU(3) Lattice Gauge Theory and String Tension (January, Preprint, 2026) .
  4. Gordeev, A; Bass, SA; Müller, B; Paquet, J-F, Quark flavor equilibration of the quark-gluon plasma, Physical Review C, vol. 113 no. 1 (January, 2026), American Physical Society (APS) [doi]  [abs].
  5. Ebner, L; Müller, B; Schäfer, A; Schmotzer, L; Seidl, C; Yao, X, Entanglement properties of SU(2) gauge theory, Communications Physics, vol. 8 no. 1 (December, 2025) [doi]  [abs].

Curriculum Vitae

Highlight:
Prof. Mueller's work focuses on nuclear matter at extreme energy density. Quantum chromodynamics, the fundamental theory of nuclear forces, predicts that nuclear matter dissolves into quarks and gluons, the elementary constituents of protons and neutrons, when a critical density or temperature is exceeded. He and his collaborators are theoretically studying the properties of this "quark-gluon plasma", its formation, and its detection in high-energy nuclear collisions. His other research interests include symmetry violating processes in the very early universe and the chaotic dynamics of elementary particle fields. Prof. Mueller is the coauthor of textbooks on the Physics of the Quark-Gluon Plasma, on Symmetry Principles in Quantum Mechanics, on Weak Interactions, and on Neural Networks.

Current Ph.D. Students   (Former Students)

  • Christopher E. Coleman-Smith  
  • Dilun Yang  
  • Hung-Ming Tsai  
Postdocs Mentored

  • Guangyou Qin (October 1, 2009 - present)  
  • Hannah Petersen (January 1, 2010 - present)  
  • Young-ho Song (September 01, 2008 - March 31, 2010)  
  • Abhijit Majumder (November 1, 2005 - August 31, 2008)  
  • Jörg Ruppert (2004/10-2006/08)  
  • Thorsten Renk (2004/01-2005/08)  
  • Rainer J. Fries (2002/01-2003/08)  
  • Steffen A. Bass (1999/01-2000/08)  
  • Dirk H. Rischke (1996/09-1997/08)  
  • Carsten Greiner (1994/01-1996/12)  
  • Sen-Ben Liao (1992/09-1995/08)  
  • Xin-Nian Wang (1991/09-1992/08)  
  • Klaus Kinder-Geiger (1990/01-1991/08)  
  • Alec J. Schramm (1990/01-1992/08)  
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