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Prof. Heinz Dehnen: Brief Biography
Heinz Dehnen was born on January 25, 1935 in Essen, Germany.
He studied Physics, Mathematics and Chemistry at the University of
Freiburg and got his Hauptdiplom in 1959. He obtained the Ph.D. in
1961 under the supervision of Prof. Helmut Hönl at the Institute of
Theoretical Physics of the University of Freiburg. Later in 1961 he became
Assistant at the same Institut. In 1968 he was substitute Professor
at the University of Munich. In 1970 Heinz Dehnen received a call for
an Ordinarius Professorship for Theoretical Physics at the University of
Konstanz, where he has remained from that time and on. He has been
Dean of the Nature Sciences–Mathematics Faculty at the University of
Konstanz, and Dean of the Faculty for Physics. Since 1995 up to date
he is Studies Dean of the Faculty for Physics also at the University of
Konstanz.
Heinz Dehnen began his scientific work in 1958 under the guidance
of Prof. Dr. Helmut Hönl at the Institute of Theoretical Physics of
the University of Freiburg. The aim of his first investigations was to
clarify the role of Mach’s principle in the context of General Relativity.
Subsequently, he pioneered the research in different topics connected
mainly with gravity, which have been his research centre and passion.
As examples of them I mention the following: Energy of the gravitational
field, relativistic astrophysics and cosmology in the framework of
scalar–tensor–theories, quantum field theories on curved space–times,
gravitational radiation of thermally excited bodies, cosmic density fluctuations
for explaining galaxy formation, unitary spin–gauge theory of
gravity, Higgs–field and gravity, bosonic dark matter in the universe,
fermionic sector of Kaluza–Klein theories, and induced gravity theories,
among others.
In the last times his dominant work consists in the attempt of unification
of gravity with the other physical interactions on the basis of
unitary gauge groups with respect to quantization. He proposed, starting
from a unitary spin gauge theory for gravity, a spin–Kaluza–theory
where the spin– and isospin–spaces are unified in a higher–dimensional
spin–space. In this context, it is even possible to begin with totally
symmetric fermionic multiplets and to generate the parity violation of
the weak interaction subsequently by means of spontaneous symmetry
breaking, related with the decoupling of gravity from the unifying theory.
Heinz Dehnen main interests do not concern with single problems of
physics but more with the general principles and structures of physical
theories.
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