Tsvi Piran (born May 6, 1949) is an Israeli

theoretical physicist Theoretical physics is a branch of physics that employs mathematical models and abstractions of physical objects and systems to rationalize, explain and predict natural phenomena. This is in contrast to experimental physics, which uses experimen ...

and astrophysicist, best known for his work on Gamma-ray Bursts (GRBs) and on

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 and ...

. The recipient of the 2019 EMET prize award in Physics and Space Research. At a time when most astronomers believed that GRBs were galactic (see however an earlier suggestion by Bohdan Paczynski ) with Eichler, Livio and Schramm, Piran proposed that GRBs originate from cosmological neutron star binary mergers, a model that is generally accepted today. During the early nineties when the cosmological vs. galactic debate took place, Piran was one of the strongest and most vocal proponents of cosmological origin, which was confirmed in 1997 with the discovery of cosmological redshifts from GRB's afterglow. Even before the cosmological origin of GRBs was discovered Piran laid the foundation to the generally accepted cosmic fireball model. He suggested that GRBs herald the formation of a newborn black hole.NYT article 1999
/ref> Later on, together with Re'em Sari and other collaborators, Piran further developed the theory of GRB afterglows, in a paper which has by now more than 1000 citations, and of GRB jets. His review papers are the standard literature on this subject. Before working on GRBs, Piran made important contributions to

, the numerical solution of Einstein's equations. In 1985 he wrote the first numerical code calculating the collapse and formation of a rotating black hole and the resulting gravitational radiation waveform. This waveform shows relaxation towards the quasinormal modes of the black hole that forms. Detection of this waveform in the future by advanced gravitational radiation detectors might provide the ultimate proof of the existence of a black hole. In addition to these works, Piran's contributions range over a selection of problems in Relativistic Astrophysics. He demonstrated the critical dependence of the stability of accretion disks on the cooling and heating mechanisms. Piran was the first to point out that inflation is a generic phenomenon involving any scalar field (without requiring a specific potential) and, in particular, that this is so for a free massive scalar field. He went on later to show that, in fact, the onset of inflation is not fully generic and it requires specific initial conditions, a concept whose full implications have not been addressed up to now. He was the first to suggest and show that cosmic biasing depends on galaxy types and that different galaxies are distributed differently in the Universe. This is a concept that seems obvious today but was controversial when proposed in the late eighties. Piran's work includes also contributions to the general theory of relativity such as one of the strongest counter examples to the

cosmic censorship hypothesis The weak and the strong cosmic censorship hypotheses are two mathematical conjectures about the structure of gravitational singularities arising in general relativity. Singularities that arise in the solutions of Einstein's equations are typically ...

and the demonstration of the instability of the inner structure of a black hole. In addition to Piran's work as an astrophysicist, he has served from 2005 until 2009 as the dean of the Hebrew University School of Business Administration. During this term he has made revisions in the school.

Chronology

*1967-1970: (undergraduate student) Mathematics and Physics, Tel Aviv University *1970-1972: Military Service and MSc studies Space Sciences, Tel Aviv University under the guidance of A. Eviatar. *1970-1976: Military Service and PhD thesis under the supervision of J. Shaham and J. Katz at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem: Penrose process and on modeling of GRBs from instabilities around black holes. *1976-1977: Research Associate at Oxford with

Dennis Sciama Dennis William Siahou Sciama, (; 18 November 1926 – 18/19 December 1999) was a British physicist who, through his own work and that of his students, played a major role in developing British physics after the Second World War. He was the PhD ...

's group: accretion disks instabilities and winds *1977-1979: Research associate and later Assistant Prof. at the University of Texas at Austin with

Bryce DeWitt Bryce Seligman DeWitt (January 8, 1923 – September 23, 2004), was an American theoretical physicist noted for his work in gravitation and quantum field theory. Life He was born Carl Bryce Seligman, but he and his three brothers, including th ...

's group: foundation of Numerical Relativity, jets in AGNs. *1980-1987: Long term member at the

Institute for Advanced Study The Institute for Advanced Study (IAS), located in Princeton, New Jersey, in the United States, is an independent center for theoretical research and intellectual inquiry. It has served as the academic home of internationally preeminent scholar ...

in Princeton, NJ and a faculty at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem: Numerical Relativity, Rotating gravitational collapse, Inflation, Galaxy biasing, neutrinos from SN 1987A *1988-1990: The Hebrew University: Gamma-ray Bursts *1990-1993: CFA Harvard: Gamma-Ray Bursts *1998-1999: Visiting Prof. Columbia University and NYU *2000- :Astronomical limits on Lorentz invariance violation *2004-2005: Moore Scholar Caltech *2005-2009: Dean Hebrew University School of Business Administration *2009- :ERC Advanced Research Grant

Honors

*Landau Prize for a distinguished PhD thesis - 1976 *Distinguished Moore Fellowship Caltech - 2005 *ERC Advanced Research Grant - 2009 *ERC Advanced Research Grant - 2016 *EMET Prize, Israel, 2019

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Piran, Tsvi 1949 births Living people Israeli astrophysicists Tel Aviv University alumni Hebrew University of Jerusalem alumni People from Tel Aviv Jewish physicists