Abraham (Avi) Loeb
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Abraham (Avi) Loeb is an American/Israeli theoretical physicist who works on astrophysics and cosmology. He is currently a professor of astronomy and the director of the Institute for Theory and Computation (ITC) [1] at Harvard University. Loeb was born in Israel in 1962 and took part in the national Talpiot program before receiving a graduate degree in Plasma Physics at age 24 from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Between 1988-1993, Loeb was long-term member at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, where he started to work in theoretical astrophysics. In 1993 he moved to Harvard University as an assistant professor in the department of astronomy, where he was tenured three years later. Loeb was given a number of awards including the Guggenheim Fellowship in 2002. He also holds a visiting professorship at the Weizmann Institute of Science.
Loeb has worked on broad range of research areas in astrophysics and cosmology, including the first stars, the epoch of reionization, the formation and evolution of massive black holes, gravitational lensing, gamma-ray bursts, and 21cm cosmology. Some of his papers are considered as pioneering in areas that have become by now the focus of established communities of astrophysicists. In particular, Loeb was among the first theorists to trigger the current research on the first stars and quasars. In a series of papers with his students and postdocs, he addressed how and when the first stars and black holes formed and what effects they had on the young universe.[2]
In 2006 Loeb was featured in a cover story of TIME magazine on the first stars and in a Scientific American article on the Dark Ages of the Universe. In 2008 Loeb was featured in a cover story of Smithsonian magazine on black holes and a cover story of Astronomy Magazine on the future collision between the Milky-Way and Andromeda.
[edit] External links
- Avi Loeb's home page
- Loeb's recent preprints
- Loeb's published papers
- Scientific American article on "The Dark Ages of the Universe"PDF (393 KB)
- Smithsonian Magazine cover story on "Homing In on Black Holes"PDF (2.65 MB)
- ASTRONOMY Magazine cover story on "Milkomeda"PDF (853 KB)
- TIME Magazine cover story, entitled: "Let There Be Light"PDF (51.5 MB)
- Press releases about Loeb's work
- Future Collision of the Milky Way and Andromeda
| Persondata | |
|---|---|
| NAME | Loeb, Abraham |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Loeb, Avi |
| SHORT DESCRIPTION | American/Israeli theoretical physicist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | 1962 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Israel |
| DATE OF DEATH | |
| PLACE OF DEATH | |
