University of Texas
Arno Rudolf Bohm
April 26, 1936–December 29, 2024

 

 

Born Stettin, Pomme, Germany.

Prof. Bohm joined UT-Austin in 1968. He was a member of the Center for Particles and Fields.  

Prof. Bohm earned his Diploma and Doctorate from the Technical University in Berlin in 1966 with Günther Ludwig. His dissertation was entitled, "Über die dynamischen Gruppen und ihre Anwendungen." ("About Dynamic Groups and Their Applications") His research interests included group theoretical methods in particle physics, the idea of the spectrum-generating group, relativistic spectrum-generating group, and relativistic collective models. He also carried out research on the quantum geometric phase and foundations and applications in molecule physics.

He married Sharita Fatima Hagjue in 1965, they were divorced in 1988. They had three children, daughter, Anita B. Bohm; sons Rudolf A. Bohm and Arun Y. Bohm. He married Darlene Cutler on May 2, 1990, in Austin, Texas, Darlene was a voice professor at the University of Texas at Austin.

Arno Rudolf Bohm Obituary

Arno Rudolf Bohm, an accomplished quantum physicist and longtime professor at The University of Texas at Austin, died December 29, 2024, in Austin at age 88.

He was most well-known for his book Quantum Mechanics, which was translated into Russian and Hindi, as well as for ideas of “rigged representations” of Hilbert Space. During his long career, Bohm authored five books (totaling 11 editions) and 118 journal articles on physics and math, and he spoke at more than 50 conferences. At UT, Bohm taught a wide range of physics courses including graduate courses on mathematical physics and quantum theory and supervised 19 Ph.D. students. 

Born April 26, 1936, .in Stettin, Germany (now Poland), Bohm studied mathematical physics in Neustreliz. He left his family in East Germany to attend the Frei Universität in West Berlin. The move caused a geopolitical separation wound that never healed, but it provided him political asylum, and he finished his Ph.D. in Berlin in theoretical physics. He was a scientific assistant in Karlsruhe and a research fellow in Marburg, Germany. His research then took him to the beautiful Adriatic seaport of Trieste, Italy, where he worked at the UNESCO International Center for Theoretical Physicswith a team of budding international physicists and fell in love with an international community dedicated to knowledge. After joining the physics team at Syracuse University in New York, he followed George Sudarshan, a colleague he met in Trieste, to the University of Texas at Austin, where he became an associate professor in 1968. 

There he published the first edition of Quantum Mechanics and built international collaborations. His years in Trieste had taught him the beauty of the international community, where one’s creativity and depth of knowledge translated into authority, and his Ph.D. student Mark Loewe said that Bohm’s different approach set the book apart and established it as a seminal text on quantum theory. His dedication to international knowledge was during a time when the scientific world was split between East and West, and he often delivered prizes to Russian physicists. Along with 3 colleagues, he created the Group Theory and Fundamental Physics Foundation at UT that awarded the Wigner Medal, which Bohm would steward. Other international collaborations were his style. He collaborated often with physicists in Mexico. Some of his collaborators at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, such as Augusto Garcia and Piotr Kielanowski, worked on initial editions of Quantum Mechanics and continued to work with him on manuscripts. Like President Jimmy Carter who died on the same day, he worked with Israelis and Egyptians (Drs. Ne’eman and Komi) and strove to represent both perspectives. He also worked extensively with Spanish physicist Manuel Gadella. Among his honors, he garnered the Humboldt Award from the Max Plank Institute in Garching, Germany; held the Elena Aizen de Moshinsky Chair at the National University of Mexico; was a senior Fullbright Fellow at Tel Aviv University in Israel; and won the Humboldt Prize from the Werner Heisenberg Institute in Munich. 

He is survived by his daughter, Anita B. Bohm; sons Rudolf A. Bohm and Arun Y. Bohm; their mother, Sharifa Fatima Bohm; and his wife, Darlene C. Wiley-Bohm. There will be a Celebration of Life on his birthday, April 26, 2025 at The University of Texas where a poem by Rabindranath Tagore from Gitanjali will be read (a favorite). His family asks that in lieu of flowers or gifts, donations be made to a physics scholarship for TAMUK students named in his honor. Please contact Rudi Bohm for details on celebration and donations.

 

APPOINTMENTS:

Professor	University of Texas at Austin	1975--present
Associate Professor	University of Texas at Austin	1968--1975
Research Associate	Syracuse University, N.Y.	1966--1968
IAEA Research Fellow	International Center for Theoretical Physics, Trieste, Italy	10/64--5/66
Research Fellow	University of Marburg, Germany	4/64--9/64
Wissenschaftl. Assistant	Technical University, Karlsruhe, Germany	1963--1964

Visiting Appointments: Institute for Theoretical Physics, Goteborg, Sweden; Max Planck Institute, Munich, Germany (several appointments, 1971-81); Solvay Institute, Brussels, Belgium (1979); University of Würzburg, Germany (Humbold Prize Awardee, 1982); Tel Aviv University, Israel (Mortimer and Raymond Sackler Fellow, 1981; Senior Fulbright Fellow, 1987); National University of Mexico (Elena Aizen de Moshinsky Chair, 1997); Max Planck Institute, Garching, Germany (Humboldt Award 1999/2000).

 

RECENT PROFESSIONAL ACTIVITIES:

Member, Standing Committee for the International Group Theory Colloquia; Chairman and Founder, Group Theory and Fundamental Physics Foundation (which administers the Wigner Medal); Organizer, Symposium on Semigroups, Goslar, Germany (1996); Co-organizer, The NATO Summer Institute in Salamanca, Spain (1992); Organizer, The First Workshop on Time Asymmetric Quantum Physics and Rigged Hilbert Space Mathematics (1998); Director, The Second and Third Workshops on Time Asymmetric Quantum Physics and Rigged Hilbert Space Mathematics, Clausthal, Germany (1999 and 2000)

RESEARCH:

Group theoretical methods in particle physics, the idea of the spectrum generating group, relativistic spectrum generating group and relativistic collective models. Also research on the quantum geometric phase and foundations and applications in molecule physics (1989-93). Work on the rigged Hilbert space formulation of quantum mechanics (1964-66), with applications to decay and Golden Rule, time evolution semigroup (1975-81), irreversible quantum theory (1993-2001).

PUBLICATIONS  RELATED TO TIME ASYMMETRIC QUANTUM THEORY:

• A. Bohm, Resonance Poles and Gamow Vectors in the Rigged Hilbert Space Formulation of Quantum Mechanics, J. Math. Phys. 22, 2813 (1981).
• A. Bohm and M. Gadella, Dirac Kets, Gamow Vectors, and Gel'fand Triplets, Lecture Notes in Physics, First Edition, Volume 78, Springer (1978); Second edition, Volume 348, Springer (1989).
• A. Bohm, S. Maxson, M. Loewe, M. Gadella, Quantum Mechanical Irreversibility, Physica A 236, 485 (1997).
• A. Bohm, Time Asymmetric Quantum Physics, Phys. Rev. A 60, 861 (1999).
• A. Bohm, H.-D. Doebner, P. Kielanowski [Eds.], Irreversibility and Causality: Semigroups and Rigged Hilbert Spaces , Springer Verlag, Berlin (1998) with review by A.~Bohm and N.L.~Harshman, Quantum Theory in the Rigged Hilbert Space - Irreversibility from Causality, pp. 181-237.

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OTHER SIGNIFICANT PUBLICATIONS:

• A. Bohm, Quantum Mechanics: Foundations and Applications, Springer, N.Y., First edition (1979); Third edition, second printing (1994).
• A. Bohm, M. Loewe, P. Magnollay, M. Tarlini, R.R. Aldinger, L.C. Biedenharn, H. van Dam, Quantum Relativistic Rotator I, Phys. Rev. D 31 2304 (1985); II, 32 791 (1985); III, 32 2828 (1985).
• A. Bohm, Y. Ne'eman, A.O. Barut, Dynamical Groups and Spectrum Generating Algebras, World Scientific (1988).
• A. Bohm,  The Geometrical Phase in Quantum Physics, Review Lectures, NATO ASI Series on Mathematical Physics, published in Integrable Systems, Quantum Groups and Quantum Field Theories; edited by L.A. Ibort and M.A. Rodriquez, Kluwer Academic Publishers (1993).

 

 

 

 

 

 

Arno R. Bohm Photo Album

 

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