Frank Eisenhauer

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Frank Eisenhauer

Frank Eisenhauer (born June 9, 1968 in Augsburg ) is a German astronomer and astrophysicist . Frank Eisenhauer is best known for his contributions to interferometry and spectroscopy and his research into the black hole in the center of the Milky Way.

Life

Frank Eisenhauer grew up in Augsburg. In 1987 Frank Eisenhauer received his Abitur at the Justus-von-Liebig Gymnasium in Neusäß . Frank Eisenhauer did his military service with Mountain Telecommunications Battalion 8 in Murnau . Frank Eisenhauer is married with three children and lives in Munich.

Education

Frank Eisenhauer studied physics at the Technical University of Munich (1988–1995) and has worked at the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics (MPE) since his diploma thesis (1995). There he wrote his doctoral thesis under Reinhard Genzel , which he completed in 1998 at the Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich. In 2011, Frank Eisenhauer completed his habilitation at the Technical University of Munich.

Teaching

Frank Eisenhauer teaches astrophysics and high-resolution astronomy as a private lecturer at the Technical University of Munich.

Science and Research

As the head (principal investigator) of two large astrophysical experiments, Frank Eisenhauer has significantly advanced the development of astronomy with the highest spatial resolution and imaging spectroscopy , and thus particularly contributed to the discovery and research of the black hole in the center of the Milky Way . At the MPE, he now heads the development and scientific evaluation of large astronomical instruments and experiments.

Frank Eisenhauer already turned to infrared astronomy in his doctoral thesis and developed an infrared camera with Fabry-Pérot spectrometer for the adaptive optics at the 3.6m telescope of the European Southern Observatory (ESO) in La Silla (Chile) . Subsequently, as Principal Investigator, he led the development of the SPIFFI / SINFONI spectrometer at the ESO Very Large Telescope in Paranal (Chile), which uses a combination of adaptive optics and imaging spectroscopy, which was unique at the time, not only to correct the disturbance from the earth's atmosphere, but at the same time for everyone Image point of the recording records a spectrum . In 2003, Eisenhauer and colleagues were able to use geometric methods to measure the distance to the center of the Milky Way from the orbit of the star S2 for the first time , and by measuring the radial velocities of several stars, they were able to confirm the assumption that a supermassive black hole is located there.

Since 2005, Frank Eisenhauer has been Principal Investigator of the GRAVITY experiment, with which the four Very Large Telescopes in Paranal (Chile) of the European Southern Observatory are interconnected as a star interferometer , and thus achieve an angular resolution that corresponds to that of a telescope with a diameter of 130 meters. Similar to adaptive optics, GRAVITY actively corrects the disturbing influences of the earth's atmosphere and the disturbances in the light path between the telescope and the laboratory, whereby the sensitivity has been improved by several orders of magnitude compared to previous experiments. In 2018, Frank Eisenhauer and colleagues were able to demonstrate in particular the redshift in the gravity field of a black hole predicted from Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity . In 2020, the same team also succeeded in demonstrating Schwarzschild precession ( orbit comparison between Newton and Einstein ) in the orbit of the star S2

The geometric measurement of the distance to the galactic center and the proof of the gravitational redshift in the gravity field of the black hole were confirmed by Andrea Ghez and colleagues with observations at the Keck observatory .

Other fields of research to which Frank Eisenhauer contributed with his observations, among other things, are the galaxy dynamics in the early universe, active galaxy nuclei, and star formation in massive star clusters.

Memberships

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2010RvMP...82.3121G Genzel, R., Eisenhauer, F., & Gillessen, S. 2010: "The Galactic Center massive black hole and nuclear star cluster", Reviews of Modern Physics, 82, 3121-3195
  2. ↑ http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2015ARA%26A..53..155E Eisenhauer, F., & Raab, W. 2015: "Visible / Infrared Imaging Spectroscopy and Energy-Resolving Detectors", Annual Review of Astronomy and Astrophysics, 53, 155-197
  3. ↑ http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2003ApJ...597L.121E Eisenhauer, F., et al. 2003: "A Geometric Determination of the Distance to the Galactic Center", The Astrophysical Journal, 597, L121
  4. ↑ http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2005ApJ...628..246E Eisenhauer, F., et al. 2005: "SINFONI in the Galactic Center: Young Stars and Infrared Flares in the Central Light-Month", The Astrophysical Journal, 628, 246
  5. ↑ http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2017A%26A...602A..94G Gravity Collaboration, et al. 2017: "First light for GRAVITY: Phase referencing optical interferometry for the Very Large Telescope Interferometer", Astronomy and Astrophysics, 602, A94
  6. ↑ http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2018A%26A...615L..15G Gravity Collaboration, et al. 2018: "Detection of the gravitational redshift in the orbit of the star S2 near the Galactic center massive black hole", Astronomy and Astrophysics, 615, L15
  7. ↑ https://www.aanda.org/articles/aa/full_html/2020/04/aa37813-20/aa37813-20.html GRAVITY Collaboration, et al. 2020: "Detection of the Schwarzschild precession in the orbit of the star S2 near the Galactic center massive black hole", Astronomy and Astrophysics, 636, L5
  8. ↑ http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2005ApJ...620..744G Ghez, A., et al. 2005: “Stellar Orbits Around the Galactic Center Black Hole”, Astrophysical Journal, 620, 744
  9. ↑ http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2019Sci...365..664D Do, T., et al. 2019: “Relativistic redshift of the star S0-2 orbiting the Galactic Center supermassive black hole”, Science, 365
  10. ↑ http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2006Natur.442..786G Genzel, R., Tacconi, LJ, Eisenhauer, F., et al. 2006: "The rapid formation of a large rotating disk galaxy three billion years after the Big Bang", Nature, 442, 786
  11. ↑ http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2018Natur.563..657G Gravity Collaboration, et al. 2018: "Spatially resolved rotation of the broad-line region of a quasar at sub-parsec scale", Nature, 563, 657
personal data
SURNAME Eisenhauer, Frank
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German astronomer and astrophysicist
DATE OF BIRTH June 9, 1968
PLACE OF BIRTH Augsburg , Bavaria