Avi Loeb

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Avi Loeb photographed in 2006 by Ruth Bazinet, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics

Avi (Abraham) Loeb (born in Israel in 1962 ) is an Israeli theoretical physicist who is primarily concerned with astrophysics and cosmology .

Life

He has been Professor of Astrophysics at Harvard University since 1997 , Director of the Institute for Theory & Computation (ITC) at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics since 2007, Chairman of the Astronomy Department at Harvard University since 2011 and owner of Frank B. Baird, Jr. Professorship of Science . In 2012 Loeb was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences .

Avi Loeb is chairman of the advisory committee of the research and development project Breakthrough Starshot , the ultimate goal of which is to send research satellites to the Alpha Centauri star system closest to the sun .

Avi Loeb has been married to Ofrit Loeb since 1999, with whom he has two daughters Klil and Lotem.

plant

At the beginning of his career, Loeb theoretically investigated the formation of the first stars at the end of the Dark Age in the reionization epoch . According to his research, it began around 100 million years after the Big Bang. Then he was involved in the search for clues with the help of radio astronomy ( 21 cm line of neutral hydrogen). Due to the redshift in the course of the expansion of the universe, the signal can be observed in completely different areas (for the transition to the reionization epoch at 50 to 100 MHz) instead of 1420 MHz. The Edges collaboration (Experiment to Detect the Global Epoch of Reionization Signature) announced the observation of an absorption profile at 78 MHz in early 2018, which points to the reionization epoch. In addition, there are indications from the profile of the absorption line that possibly point to dark matter (stronger cooling of the hydrogen gas than would be expected from the expansion of the universe alone). The signal was very difficult to observe as it is heavily obscured by terrestrial sources, galactic radiation and other sources. It is hoped that the planned square kilometer array will provide better data . The 21 cm wavelength astronomy can also be used to research the further development of the early universe in other epochs.

In 2006, he and Avery Broderick proposed how radio wave astronomy could provide high-resolution images of the supermassive black hole in the center of the Milky Way and show phenomena like a shadow of the black hole and hot spots of matter flowing into the black hole.

Ideas for finding alien civilizations

In 2006, Avi Loeb and Matias Zaldarriaga suggested using radio telescopes to look for possible electromagnetic waves in the frequency range of radio and television broadcasts , such as those emitted by humans from Earth , when searching for extraterrestrial civilizations .

In 2014, Avi Loeb, Gonzalo Gonzalez Abad from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, and Henry W. Lin published an essay on another way to search for extraterrestrial civilizations: One can search for artificial pollutants, especially CFCs, in the atmospheres of Earth-like exoplanets come from a high-tech extraterrestrial industry.

Works

  • A. Loeb, A. Ferrara, RS Ellis: First Light in the Universe . SAAS-Fee winter school, New York 2008, Springer
  • Abraham Loeb: How Did the First Stars and Galaxies Form? , Princeton University Press 2012, ISBN 978-0-691-14516-7
  • Abraham Loeb, Steven R. Furlanetto: The First Galaxies in the Universe , Princeton University Press 2013, ISBN 978-0-691-14491-7
  • Abraham Loeb (Author), Dror Burstein (Editor), Todd Hasak-Lowy (Translator): From the First Star to Milkomeda , Kindle Edition. Amazon Digital Services LLC, Aug. 24, 2014
  • Abraham Loeb: Dark ages of the universe, Scientific American, November 2006
  • Abraham Loeb, Avery Broderick: Portrait of a black hole, Scientific American, May 2013
  • Abraham Loeb, Anna Ijjas, Paul Steinhardt: Cosmic Inflation Theory Faces Challenges, Scientific American, February 2017

Web links

Video

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ https://www.cfa.harvard.edu/~loeb/Brief_CV.pdf  ; Retrieved April 19, 2016
  2. ↑ https://www.cfa.harvard.edu/~loeb/Bio/bio_sketch.html accessed on April 19, 2016
  3. ↑ http://www.breakthroughinitiatives.org/Leaders/3/ accessed April 19, 2016
  4. ↑ https://www.cfa.harvard.edu/~loeb/Photos/wedding.html  ; Retrieved April 19, 2016
  5. ↑ https://www.cfa.harvard.edu/~loeb/Photos/p1.html  ; Retrieved April 19, 2016
  6. ↑ Joshua Kerrigan, First Detection of the 21cm Cosmic Dawn Signal , Astrobites, March 14, 2018
  7. ↑ Johann Grolle: The First Suns , Der Spiegel, No. 13, March 24, 2018, p. 114ff. The article is based on an interview with Loeb.
  8. ^ Abraham Loeb, Matias Zaldarriaga: Eavesdropping on Radio Broadcasts from Galactic Civilizations with Upcoming Observatories for Redshifted 21cm Radiation . on arxiv.org on October 12, 2006, last amended on October 19, 2006 ; Retrieved April 19, 2016
  9. ↑ Harald Zaun: TV with ET. Harvard astronomers suggest: SETI should also look for extraterrestrial radio and television emissions that happen to reach us . on heise.de from October 6, 2008 ; Retrieved April 19, 2016
  10. ↑ Harald Zaun: Search for traces of techno-signatures in extraterrestrial atmospheres. on heise.de from August 17, 2014; Retrieved April 24, 2016
personal data
SURNAME Loeb, Avi
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Loeb, Abraham
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Israeli theoretical physicist
DATE OF BIRTH 1962
PLACE OF BIRTH Israel