From 1982 he was a Heisenberg fellow again at the University of Bonn. In 1986 he became associate professor at the University of California, Davis. 1989 to 2002 he was a full professor at the University of Bonn. Since 2002 he is one of three senior professors at the School of Theoretical Physics at the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies and since 2007 its director. He is a foreign member of the Max Planck Institute for Mathematics in Bonn.
In the 1970s he worked with elementary theory, for example, bootstrap models (the subject of his dissertation[2]) and the classification of gradedLie algebras, which are important in supersymmetric theories. After that, he worked mainly on the theory of magnetic monopoles, classification of supersymmetric models, conformal field theories and their algebraic classification, and classification of string models. The Nahm equations (1981) are named after him, used in (for example) for the description of monopoles in Yang–Mills theories, and the Nahm transform.
Nahm also conducted research about the Mayan civilisation and their astronomy, for example, the role of Venus (and their phases) in terms of calendar prediction that was important for their planning of wars. In his Mayan research, he also worked with Linda Schele and Nikolai Grube and participated in the ongoing decipherment of Maya hieroglyphs.[3] He also found evidence of supernova events and the observation of Mercury in the Mayan writings.
His doctoral and diploma students include Katrin Becker, Melanie Becker, Ralph Blumenhagen, Sayipjamal Dulat, Michael Flohr, Andreas Honecker, Ralph Kaufmann, Johannes Kellendonk, Andreas Malmendier, Andreas Recknagel, Daniel Roggenkamp, and Katrin Wendland in academia, and Holger Eberle, Wolfgang Eholzer, Michael Terhoeven, and Raimund Varnhagen in industry.
Conformally invariant quantum field theories in two dimensions. World Scientific. 1995.
Edited with Ling-Lie Chau: Differential geometric methods in theoretical physics: physics and geometry (18. International Conference on differential geometric methods in theoretical physics, University of California, Davis 1988). Plenum Press. 1990.
Edited: Interface between physics and mathematics, (Hangzhou 1993 Konferenz). World Scientific. 1994.
Edited: Trieste Conference on topological methods in Quantum Field Theory. World Scientific. 1991.
N. Craigie (1986). Mathematical structures underlying monopoles in gauge theories (Theory and detection of magnetic monopoles in gauge theories). World Scientific.
Nahm, Werner (1 January 1987). "Quantum field theories in one and two dimensions". Duke Mathematical Journal. 54 (2). Duke University Press. doi:10.1215/s0012-7094-87-05424-x. ISSN0012-7094.
P. Cartier (2007). Conformal field theory and torsion elements of the Bloch group. Frontiers in Number Theory, Physics and Geometry. Vol. 2. Springer Verlag.
^e.g. Grube, Nahm "A census of Xibalba – a complete inventory of way characters on Maya ceramics", in J. Kerr (Herausgeber) "The Maya Vase Book", V. 4, 1994. Nahm: "Maya warfare and the Venus year", Mexicon, V. 16, 1994, "Hieroglyphic Stairway 1 at Yaxchilan", Mexicon, V. 19, 1997
