Luciano Rezzolla (born 1967) is an Italian professor of relativistic astrophysics and
numerical relativity
Numerical relativity is one of the branches of general relativity that uses numerical methods and algorithms to solve and analyze problems. To this end, supercomputers are often employed to study black holes, gravitational waves, neutron stars a ...
at the
Goethe University Frankfurt. His main field of study is the physics and astrophysics of compact objects such as
black holes and
neutron stars
A neutron star is the collapsed core of a massive supergiant star, which had a total mass of between 10 and 25 solar masses, possibly more if the star was especially metal-rich. Except for black holes and some hypothetical objects (e.g. white ...
. It was announced in 2019 that he had been appointed honorary
Andrews Professor of Astronomy
The Andrews Professor of Astronomy is a chair in astronomy in Trinity College Dublin was established in 1783 in conjunction with the establishment of Dunsink Observatory.
Dunsink was founded in 1785 following a bequest by Provost Francis Andre ...
at
Trinity College Dublin
, name_Latin = Collegium Sanctae et Individuae Trinitatis Reginae Elizabethae juxta Dublin
, motto = ''Perpetuis futuris temporibus duraturam'' (Latin)
, motto_lang = la
, motto_English = It will last i ...
(TCD).
Education
Born in
Milan
Milan ( , , Lombard: ; it, Milano ) is a city in northern Italy, capital of Lombardy, and the second-most populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of about 1.4 million, while its metropolitan city h ...
, Italy, in 1967, Rezzolla completed his undergraduate degree in physics
at the
University of Bari
The University of Bari Aldo Moro ( it, Università degli Studi di Bari Aldo Moro) is a state-supported higher education institution founded in 1925 in Bari, Apulia, in Southern Italy. The university is one of the most prestigious universities in ...
and
University of Trieste
The University of Trieste ( it, Università degli Studi di Trieste, or UniTS) is a public research university in Trieste in the Friuli-Venezia Giulia region in northeast Italy. The university consists of 10 departments, boasts a wide and almos ...
. After a year in the Italian Navy as submarine officer, he studied at
SISSA
The International School for Advanced Studies (Italian: ''Scuola Internazionale Superiore di Studi Avanzati''; SISSA) is an international, state-supported, post-graduate-education and research institute in Trieste, Italy.
SISSA is active in th ...
and received his PhD in 1997 under the supervision of John C. Miller.
Academic career
After completing a postdoc at the
University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign
The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (U of I, Illinois, University of Illinois, or UIUC) is a public land-grant research university in Illinois in the twin cities of Champaign and Urbana. It is the flagship institution of the Univer ...
studying black holes and neutron stars, he returned to SISSA as a research fellow, and ultimately an associate professor. In 2006 he became head of the numerical relativity group at the
Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics
The Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics (Albert Einstein Institute) is a Max Planck Institute whose research is aimed at investigating Einstein's theory of relativity and beyond: Mathematics, quantum gravity, astrophysical relativity, a ...
in Potsdam, Germany specialising in the numerical simulations of
binary black holes and
binary neutron stars. In 2013, he moved to
Goethe University
Goethe University (german: link=no, Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main) is a university located in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. It was founded in 1914 as a citizens' university, which means it was founded and funded by the wealt ...
to fill the chair of theoretical astrophysics.
[ Since 2017, he is the Director of the Institute for Theoretical Physics in Frankfurt.
Together with collaborators in 2001, he has shown that r-modes in a neutron star will generate differential rotation, which could amplify the magnetic field and suppress the instability. In 2003, he proposed that the QPOs that are measured in harmonic ratios in high-mass X-ray binaries can be explained simply in terms of trapped p-mode oscillations of an accretion torus around the black hole.] Together with collaborators in 2011, he showed that the merger of magnetised neutron stars leads to the formation of a black hole and highly magnetised torus from which a magnetic jet structure develops which provides a link between the theoretical modelling and observation of a jet in short gamma-ray bursts. In 2013, together with Heino Falcke
Heino Falcke (born 26 September 1966) is a German Dutch professor of radio astronomy and astroparticle physics at the Radboud University Nijmegen. He was a winner of the 2011 Spinoza Prize. His main field of study is black holes, and he is the orig ...
he has proposed that blitzar
In astronomy, blitzars are a hypothetical type of neutron star, specifically pulsars that can rapidly collapse into black holes if their spinning slows down. Heino Falcke and Luciano Rezzolla proposed these stars in 2013 as an explanation for fa ...
s could be an explanation
for fast radio burst
In radio astronomy, a fast radio burst (FRB) is a transient radio pulse of length ranging from a fraction of a millisecond to 3 seconds, caused by some high-energy astrophysical process not yet understood. Astronomers estimate the average FRB rel ...
s. Blitzars would
occur when a supramassive rotating neutron star
A neutron star is the collapsed core of a massive supergiant star, which had a total mass of between 10 and 25 solar masses, possibly more if the star was especially metal-rich. Except for black holes and some hypothetical objects (e.g. w ...
slows down enough, loses
its magnetic field and then turns into a black hole. He has also worked on gravastar
A gravastar is an object hypothesized in astrophysics by Pawel O. Mazur and Emil Mottola as an alternative to the black hole theory. It has usual black hole metric outside of the horizon, but de Sitter metric inside. On the horizon there is a th ...
s and found that the merger of black holes from GW150914
The first direct observation of gravitational waves was made on 14 September 2015 and was announced by the LIGO and Virgo collaborations on 11 February 2016. Previously, gravitational waves had been inferred only indirectly, via their effect on ...
is not consistent with the gravastar model.
Alongside Heino Falcke
Heino Falcke (born 26 September 1966) is a German Dutch professor of radio astronomy and astroparticle physics at the Radboud University Nijmegen. He was a winner of the 2011 Spinoza Prize. His main field of study is black holes, and he is the orig ...
and Michael Kramer, he received a
14 million euro research grant of the European Research Council (Synergy Grant) for further
studies into black holes with the goal to construct a black hole camera using the Event Horizon Telescope
The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) is a large Astronomical interferometer, telescope array consisting of a global network of radio telescopes. The EHT project combines data from several very-long-baseline interferometry (VLBI) stations around Ear ...
(EHT). This would allow testing of general theory of relativity
General relativity, also known as the general theory of relativity and Einstein's theory of gravity, is the differential geometry, geometric scientific theory, theory of gravitation published by Albert Einstein in 1915 and is the current descr ...
by creating an image of the black hole shadow. Starting from 2015, and as a member of the Executive Board of the collaboration Event Horizon Telescope
The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) is a large Astronomical interferometer, telescope array consisting of a global network of radio telescopes. The EHT project combines data from several very-long-baseline interferometry (VLBI) stations around Ear ...
, he has contributed to the international effort of producing the first image of a supermassive black hole at the center of the supergiant
Supergiants are among the most massive and most luminous stars. Supergiant stars occupy the top region of the Hertzsprung–Russell diagram with absolute visual magnitudes between about −3 and −8. The temperature range of supergiant stars spa ...
elliptical galaxy
An elliptical galaxy is a type of galaxy with an approximately ellipsoidal shape and a smooth, nearly featureless image. They are one of the four main classes of galaxy described by Edwin Hubble in his Hubble sequence and 1936 work ''The Real ...
Messier 87
Messier 87 (also known as Virgo A or NGC 4486, generally abbreviated to M87) is a supergiant elliptical galaxy with several trillion stars in the constellation Virgo. One of the largest and most massive galaxies in the local ...
(M87). Together with his group in Frankfurt, and using numerical simulations of plasma accreting onto black holes, he has contributed to the theoretical interpretation of the observational data.
His awards include the Karl-Schwarzchild Prize (2017), the Frankfurt Physics Science Prize (2019) the NSF Diamond Achievement Award, the Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics (both in 2019 and shared with EHT Collaboration), and the "Golden Seal" from the University of Bari
The University of Bari Aldo Moro ( it, Università degli Studi di Bari Aldo Moro) is a state-supported higher education institution founded in 1925 in Bari, Apulia, in Southern Italy. The university is one of the most prestigious universities in ...
. He has also been appointed "Outstanding Personality 2019" from Frankfurt am Main City Council (2019). In 2020 he was awarded an Advanced ERC Grant (Jetset) to study the launching and propagation of relativistic jets.
With Olindo Zanotti, he has written a textbook "Relativistic Hydrodynamics", that is universally recognised as the standard reference on this topic.
Public Outreach
Rezzolla has always dedicated his attention to the diffusion of his scientific results, especially through the use of advanced visualisations of his simulations. On
simulation
on gamma-ray bursts has received more than five hundred thousands views on YouTube, while anothe
simulation
on the tidal disruption of neutron stars has also attracted a lot of attention with almost a million views, eventually ending-up on th
In 2020 he has published his first public-outreach book "The irresistible attraction of gravity", first appeared i
Italian
and then in other languages, such a
German
and English.
Personal life
Rezzolla is an avid sailor and currently lives in Potsdam with his wife, Carolin Schneider, and three children, Anna, Emilia and Dominik.
Bibliography
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*
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References
External links
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Personal website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Rezzolla, Luciano
1967 births
Italian astrophysicists
Living people