Robert Brandenberger

Robert Brandenberger
Brandenberger in 1987
Born1956 (age 69–70)
Bern, Switzerland
Alma mater
  • ETH Zurich
  • Harvard University
  • Cambridge University
Known forBrandenberger–Vafa mechanism
Scientific career
FieldsCosmology
Workplaces
  • Brown University
  • McGill University
Thesis Topics in Quantum Field Theory and Cosmology  (1983)
William Henry Press
Arthur Jaffe
Doctoral students
Websitehttps://www.physics.mcgill.ca/~rhb/

Robert H. Brandenberger (born 1956) is a Swiss-Canadian theoretical cosmologist and a professor of physics at McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.

Biography

Brandenberger completed his undergraduate degree at ETH Zurich, in Switzerland, and went on to receive his Ph.D. from Harvard University.[1] He was a postdoctoral student under Stephen Hawking at the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics (DAMTP) at the University of Cambridge.[2] He also did postdoctoral work at the Institute for Theoretical Physics, University of California, Santa Barbara. Professor Brandenberger joined the faculty of Brown University in 1987 and then in 2004, he joined McGill University where he is a Canada Research Chair (Tier 1) holder.[3] He is also an affiliate member of the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics.[4]

With Cumrun Vafa, Brandenberger developed string gas cosmology. In particular, they proposed the Brandenberger–Vafa mechanism as an alternative to inflationary cosmology.[5] Because the original model did not address the questions of entropy and flatness,[6] Brandenberger and his colleagues have been working on improving it.[7][8] During the 2000s, when the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) was in operation observing the cosmic microwave background, a number of theorists, including Hawking and Alan Guth, the founder of the theory of cosmic inflation, explored the implications of p-branes, which are hypothetical objects in string theory, for cosmology. With Natalia Shuhmaher, Brandenberger constructed a model of a brane gas to explain why the observed universe has only three dimensions.[9][10]: 225 

Honors and awards

He has won numerous awards for his work, including the Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship in 1988,[11] the Outstanding Junior Researcher award from the Department of Energy in 1988,[12] the Killam Research Fellowship in 2009,[13] and the CAP-CRM Prize in Theoretical and Mathematical Physics in 2011.[14]

He was elected a Fellow of the American Physical Society in 2001 [15]

References

  1. ↑ Robert Brandenberger at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
  2. ↑ Stephen Hawking helped elevate Canada’s profile in physics community. The Star. Peter Goffin. The Canadian Press. March 14, 2018.
  3. ↑ Government of Canada, Industry Canada (November 29, 2012). "Canada Research Chairs". www.chairs-chaires.gc.ca.
  4. ↑ "Robert Brandenberger | Perimeter Institute". www.perimeterinstitute.ca.
  5. ↑ Brandenberger, Robert; Vafa, Cumrun (April 10, 1989). "Superstrings in the Early Universe". Nuclear Physics B. 2: 391–410. doi:10.1016/0550-3213(89)90037-.
  6. ↑ Brandenberger, Robert H.; Nayeri, ALI; Patil, Subodh P.; Vafa, Cumrun (2007). "String Gas Cosmology and Structure Formation". International Journal of Modern Physics A. 22 (21): 3621–3642. arXiv:hep-th/0608121. Bibcode:2007IJMPA..22.3621B. doi:10.1142/S0217751X07037159. S2CID 5899352.
  7. ↑ Lashkari, Nima; Brandenberger, Robert H (September 17, 2008). "Speed of sound in string gas cosmology". Journal of High Energy Physics. 2008 (9): 082. arXiv:0806.4358. Bibcode:2008JHEP...09..082L. doi:10.1088/1126-6708/2008/09/082. ISSN 1029-8479. S2CID 119184258.
  8. ↑ Kamali, Vahid; Brandenberger, Robert (May 11, 2020). "Creating spatial flatness by combining string gas cosmology and power law inflation". Physical Review D. 101 (10) 103512. arXiv:2002.09771. Bibcode:2020PhRvD.101j3512K. doi:10.1103/PhysRevD.101.103512. ISSN 2470-0010.
  9. ↑ Brandenberger, Robert; Shuhmaher, Natalia (April 24, 2006). "Brane Gas-Driven Bulk Expansion as a Precursor Stage to Brane Inflation". Physical Review Letters. 96 161301. doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.96.161301.
  10. ↑ Ferguson, Kitty (2012). Stephen Hawking: An Unfettered Mind. Palgrave MacMillan. ISBN 978-0-230-34060-2.
  11. ↑ "E. E. Just Program | Home". Dartmouth.edu. Retrieved 2021-02-11.
  12. ↑ "Researchers @ Brown". vivo.brown.edu.
  13. ↑ Phone: 514-398-7698, Contact Information Contact: Allison Flynn Organization: Media Relations Office Email: allison j flynnmcgill ca Office. "McGill physicist awarded Killam Research Fellowship". Channels. {{cite web}}: |first= has generic name (help)CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  14. ↑ "CAP Medal Press Release - 2011 CRM". Archived from the original on 2015-02-19. Retrieved 2013-03-04.
  15. ↑ "APS Fellow Archive". APS. Retrieved 17 September 2020.
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