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| Name |
Schutz, Bernard F. |
| Location
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Cardiff University |
| Primary Field
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Physics |
| Secondary Field
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Astronomy |
 Election Citation
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Schutz developed field-defining principles for using gravitational waves to observe the universe, helping establish the foundations for earth- and space-based gravitational wave observatories.
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Research Interests
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Bernard Schutz's research interests include theoretical and computational general relativity, relativistic astrophysics, and data science. In the 1970's he helped lay the foundations of the theory of pulsations of relativistic stars, work that included identifying the Chandrasekhar-Friedman-Schutz class of gravitational-wave (GW) driven instabilities. He then began working with experimentalists to develop GW detection, showing in 1986 how interferometers can measure cosmic distances to binaries of neutron stars and black holes from their signals, and how that enables a measurement of the cosmological expansion rate. These are now central parts of LIGO-Virgo (LV) observations. Schutz's Cardiff University group went on to pioneer the methods that are used to analyse the LV data. At the Albert Einstein Institute (AEI) in Germany, his division developed fundamental techniques enabling numerical simulations of black-hole mergers, and it created many data-analysis tools used in LV searches for GW pulsars. He oversaw the expansion of the AEI into experimental gravitation, including the mid-size GW interferometer GEO600 that develops technologies for LIGO and Virgo, plus a laboratory that has become a principal center for the design and development of the LISA space mission to detect low-frequency GWs. As the LISA proposal's science and data lead, Schutz contributed significantly to LISA's adoption by the European Space Agency in 2016. Schutz founded the online journal 'Living Reviews in Relativity' in 1998 (now published by Springer); under his editorship it became the highest-impact open-access journal worldwide. |
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