Alessandra Buonanno
Alessandra Buonanno is a theoretical physicist. She is a director at the Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics (Albert Einstein Institute)[1] in Potsdam, and head of the "Astrophysical and Cosmological Relativity" department.[2] She holds a College Park professorship[3] at the University of Maryland, College Park, and honorary professorships at the Humboldt University in Berlin,[4] and the University of Potsdam.[5] She is a leading member of the LIGO Scientific Collaboration,[6] which observed gravitational waves from a binary black-hole merger in 2015.[7]
Alessandra Buonanno | |
---|---|
Buonanno in 2016 | |
Nationality | Italian and American |
Alma mater | University of Pisa |
Awards | Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (2018) |
Scientific career | |
Fields | Gravitational waves |
Institutions | Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics (Albert Einstein Institute)
University of Maryland, College Park Astroparticle and Cosmology Laboratory, Paris Institut d'astrophysique de Paris |
Website | https://www.aei.mpg.de/alessandra-buonanno |
Early life and education
Buonanno earned her MSc in 1993, and she completed her PhD in theoretical physics at the University of Pisa in 1996.[8] After a brief period spent at the theory division of CERN, she held a postdoctoral position at the Institut des Hautes Etudes Scientifiques (IHES) in France and a R.C. Tolman Prize Fellowship at the California Institute of Technology.[9]
Career and research
Buonanno became a permanent researcher (Chargée de 1ere classe, CR1) in 2001 at the Institut d'astrophysique de Paris (IAP) and then at the Astroparticle and Cosmology Laboratory (APC) in Paris with the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) before joining the University of Maryland as a physics professor in 2005.[3] She moved to the Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics in 2014.[10]
Buonanno's work with Thibault Damour of reducing the two-body problem in general relativity to an effective one-body formalism,[11][12] and her research at the intersection of analytical-relativity modeling[13][14][15] and numerical relativity simulations were employed to observe gravitational waves from merging binary black holes for the first time, and infer their astrophysical and cosmological properties.[7][16][17] Beyond her core expertise in modeling gravitational waves from compact-object binary systems, Buonanno, in collaboration with Yanbei Chen, computed the quantum-optical noise in the advanced-LIGO gravitational-wave detectors,[18][19] and showed that quantum correlations between photon shot noise and radiation-pressure noise (i.e., the optical-spring effect) can circumvent constraints imposed by the Heisenberg uncertainty principle in those detectors.
Awards and honors
- 2019: 8th Benjamin Lee Professorship, Asian Pacific Center for Theoretical Physics, South Korea[20]
- 2018: Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG)[8][21][22]
- 2016: Lower Saxony State Prize (shared with Bruce Allen and Karsten Danzmann)[23][24]
- 2011–2012: William and Flora Hewlett Fellow, Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard University[25]
- 2011: Fellow of the American Physical Society (APS)[26]
- 2010: Fellow of the International Society on General Relativity and Gravitation (ISGRG)[27]
- 2007: Richard A. Ferrell Distinguished Faculty Fellowship, University of Maryland, College Park[28]
- 2006–2008: Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship[29]
- 2000: Italian Society of General Relativity and Gravitational Physics (SIGRAV) Prize[30]
References
- "New director at the Albert Einstein Institute: Prof. Alessandra Buonanno has accepted position at the Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics in Potsdam, Germany". Press release of the Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics, 16 January 2014. Retrieved 8 June 2020.
- "Astrophysical and Cosmological Relativity (Potsdam)". Webpage of A. Buonanno’s division at the Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics. Retrieved 8 June 2020.
- Suplee, Anne. "Buonanno, Alessandra – UMD Physics". Webpage of A. Buonanno at the University of Maryland. Retrieved 8 June 2020.
- gilse. "Special Colloquium for the Awarding of an Honorary Professorship to Prof. Dr. Alessandra Buonanno (Albert Einstein Institute, Potsdam) — Department of Physics". www.physik.hu-berlin.de. Retrieved 8 June 2020.
- "Universität Potsdam – Institut für Physik und Astronomie". Contact information of A. Buonanno on Potsdam University webpage. Retrieved 8 June 2020.
- "LIGO Scientific Collaboration Directory". A. Buonanno's LIGO group in the LSC member roster. Retrieved 28 July 2020.
- Abbot, B.P. (2016). "Observation of Gravitational Waves from a Binary Black Hole Merger". Phys. Rev. Lett. 116 (6): 061102. arXiv:1602.03837. Bibcode:2016PhRvL.116f1102A. doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.116.061102. PMID 26918975.
- "DFG, German Research Foundation – Prof. Dr. Alessandra Buonanno". Website of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft about A. Buonanno. Retrieved 8 June 2020.
- "Postdoctoral Fellows of the Burke Institute". List of postdoctoral fellows at Burke Institute/Caltech. Retrieved 8 June 2020.
- "Buonanno, Alessandra". A. Buonanno on the Max Planck Society's website. Retrieved 8 June 2020.
- Buonanno, Alessandra; Damour, Thibault (1999). "Effective-one-body approach to general relativistic two-body dynamics". Phys. Rev. D. 59 (8): 084006. arXiv:gr-qc/9811091. Bibcode:1999PhRvD..59h4006B. doi:10.1103/PhysRevD.59.084006. hdl:11858/00-001M-0000-0019-8ADF-8. S2CID 14951569.
- Buonanno, Alessandra; Damour, Thibault (2000). "Transition from inspiral to plunge in binary black hole coalescences". Phys. Rev. D. 62 (60415): 064015. arXiv:gr-qc/0001013. Bibcode:2000PhRvD..62f4015B. doi:10.1103/PhysRevD.62.064015. hdl:11858/00-001M-0000-0019-8AD4-D. S2CID 18247018.
- Buonanno, Alessandra; Cook, G.; Pretorius, F. (2007). "Inspiral, merger and ring-down of equal-mass black-hole binary". Phys. Rev. D. 75 (124018): 124018. arXiv:gr-qc/0610122. Bibcode:2007PhRvD..75l4018B. doi:10.1103/PhysRevD.75.124018. S2CID 53578705.
- Barausse, E.; Buonanno, Alessandra (2010). "An improved effective-one-body Hamiltonian for spinning black-hole binaries". Phys. Rev. D. 81 (64024): 084024. arXiv:0912.3517. Bibcode:2010PhRvD..81h4024B. doi:10.1103/PhysRevD.81.084024. S2CID 119102991.
- Taracchini, A. (2014). "Effective-one-body model for black-hole binaries with generic mass ratios and spins". Phys. Rev. D. 89 (61502): 061502. arXiv:1311.2544. Bibcode:2014PhRvD..89f1502T. doi:10.1103/PhysRevD.89.061502. hdl:11858/00-001M-0000-0023-F6AF-7. S2CID 32703759.
- Abbot, B.P. (2016). "Tests of general relativity with GW150914". Phys. Rev. Lett. 116 (22): 221101. arXiv:1602.03841. Bibcode:2016PhRvL.116v1101A. doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.116.221101. PMID 27314708.
- Abbot, B.P. (2016). "GW151226: Observation of Gravitational Waves from a 22-Solar-Mass Binary Black-Hole Coalescence". Phys. Rev. Lett. 116 (241103): 241103. arXiv:1606.04855. Bibcode:2016PhRvL.116x1103A. doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.116.241103. PMID 27367379.
- Buonanno, Alessandra; Chen, Yanbei (2001). "Quantum noise in second generation, signal recycled laser interferometric gravitational wave detectors". Phys. Rev. D. 64 (42006): 042006. arXiv:gr-qc/0102012. Bibcode:2001PhRvD..64d2006B. doi:10.1103/PhysRevD.64.042006. hdl:11858/00-001M-0000-0019-84A2-2. S2CID 9280888.
- Buonanno, Alessandra; Chen, Yanbei (2002). "Signal recycled laser interferometer gravitational wave detectors as optical springs". Phys. Rev. D. 65 (42001): 042001. arXiv:gr-qc/0107021. Bibcode:2002PhRvD..65d2001B. doi:10.1103/PhysRevD.65.042001. hdl:11858/00-001M-0000-0018-FEFA-1. S2CID 10231808.
- "Information about the Benjamin Lee Professorship on the Webpage of the Asia Pacific Center for Theoretical Physics". www.apctp.org. Retrieved 8 June 2020.
- Steffi Pyanoe: Alessandra Buonanno erhält Leibniz-Preis. Deutschlands wichtigster Forschungspreis geht nach Potsdam, in: Potsdamer Neueste Nachrichten, 14. März 2018; abgerufen am 15. März 2018.
- Torsten Harmsen: (15. März 2018):Modellfrau der Physik. Die Potsdamer Gravitationsexpertin Alessandra Buonanno erhält den Leibniz-Preis mit 2,5 Millionen Euro. In: Berliner Zeitung, p. 17
- "Der Niedersächsische Staatspreis | Portal Niedersachsen". www.niedersachsen.de. Retrieved 8 June 2020.
- Hilbig, Bärbel (3 June 2016). "Staatspreis geht an Gravitationswellenforscher". Hannoversche Allgemeine (in German). Hanover. Retrieved 20 October 2020.
- "Alessandra Buonanno". Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University. 16 March 2012. Retrieved 8 June 2020.
- "Alessandra Buonanno Named 2011 APS Fellow – UMD Physics". umdphysics.umd.edu. Retrieved 8 June 2020.
- "Fellows of the International Society on General Relativity and Gravitation". www.isgrg.org. Retrieved 8 June 2020.
- "Awards – UMD Physics". umdphysics.umd.edu. Retrieved 8 June 2020.
- "Past Fellows". sloan.org. Retrieved 8 June 2020.
- "The SIGRAV Prizes . SIGRAV". SIGRAV. Retrieved 8 June 2020.