Alexei Alexandrovich Starobinsky (russian: Алексе́й Алекса́ндрович Староби́нский; born 19 April 1948) is a

Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

and

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-ei ...

n astrophysicist and

cosmologist Cosmology () is a branch of physics and metaphysics dealing with the nature of the universe. The term ''cosmology'' was first used in English in 1656 in Thomas Blount's ''Glossographia'', and in 1731 taken up in Latin by German philosopher ...

. He received the

Kavli Prize The Kavli Prize was established in 2005 as a joint venture of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters, the Norwegian Ministry of Education and Research, and the Kavli Foundation. It honors, supports, and recognizes scientists for outstan ...

in Astrophysics "for pioneering the theory of cosmic inflation", together with

Alan Guth Alan Harvey Guth (; born February 27, 1947) is an American theoretical physicist and cosmologist. Guth has researched elementary particle theory (and how particle theory is applicable to the early universe). He is Victor Weisskopf Professor of ...

and

Andrei Linde Andrei Dmitriyevich Linde (russian: Андре́й Дми́триевич Ли́нде; born March 2, 1948) is a Russian-American theoretical physicist and the Harald Trap Friis Professor of Physics at Stanford University. Linde is one of the ...

in 2014.

Early life

Starobinsky is a former student of

Yakov Zeldovich Yakov Borisovich Zeldovich ( be, Я́каў Бары́савіч Зяльдо́віч, russian: Я́ков Бори́сович Зельдо́вич; 8 March 1914 – 2 December 1987), also known as YaB, was a leading Soviet physicist of Bel ...

Moscow State University M. V. Lomonosov Moscow State University (MSU; russian: Московский государственный университет имени М. В. Ломоносова) is a public research university in Moscow, Russia and the most prestigious ...

from where he earned a bachelor's degree in 1972. In 1975, he earned a PhD degree from the Landau Institute for Theoretical Physics of the

Russian Academy of Sciences The Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS; russian: Росси́йская акаде́мия нау́к (РАН) ''Rossíyskaya akadémiya naúk'') consists of the national academy of Russia; a network of scientific research institutes from across t ...

and is now a senior scientist at the institute. From 1990 to 1997, he headed the department of gravitation and cosmology and, from 1999 to 2003, he was the institute's deputy director. In the 1970s, Starobinsky worked on the theory of particle creation in the early universe and particle generation and radiation from rotating black holes (1973/74), a precursor of the theory of

Hawking radiation Hawking radiation is theoretical black body radiation that is theorized to be released outside a black hole's event horizon because of relativistic quantum effects. It is named after the physicist Stephen Hawking, who developed a theoretical a ...

. He was also, in 1979, a pioneer in the theory of

cosmic inflation In physical cosmology, cosmic inflation, cosmological inflation, or just inflation, is a theory of exponential expansion of space in the early universe. The inflationary epoch lasted from seconds after the conjectured Big Bang singular ...

in the Russian scientific literature. The phase of inflation postulates that the universe size grew quadrillion times faster that the speed of light. Starobinsky worked on

Starobinsky inflation Starobinsky inflation is a modification of general relativity used to explain cosmological inflation. History In the Soviet Union, Alexei Starobinsky noted that quantum corrections to general relativity should be important for the early universe. ...

, a modification to general relativity which attempts to explain inflation. In the American and western European physics literature,

was considered a pioneer of the theory during the same time period. Starobinsky was a visiting scientist in 1991 at the École Normale Superieure; in 2006, at the

Institut Henri Poincaré The Henri Poincaré Institute (or IHP for ''Institut Henri Poincaré'') is a mathematics research institute part of Sorbonne University, in association with the Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS). It is located in the 5th arrond ...

; in 1994 and 2007, at the Yukawa Institute of the

University of Kyoto , mottoeng = Freedom of academic culture , established = , type = Public (National) , endowment = ¥ 316 billion (2.4 billion USD) , faculty = 3,480 (Teaching Staff) , administrative_staff = 3,978 (Total Staff) , students = 2 ...

; and, in 2000/2001, at the Research Center for the Early Universe at the

University of Tokyo , abbreviated as or UTokyo, is a public research university located in Bunkyō, Tokyo, Japan. Established in 1877, the university was the first Imperial University and is currently a Top Type university of the Top Global University Project b ...

. Starobinsky is a member of the

. In 2010, he was elected a Member of the

German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina The German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina (german: Deutsche Akademie der Naturforscher Leopoldina – Nationale Akademie der Wissenschaften), short Leopoldina, is the national academy of Germany, and is located in Halle (Saale). Founde ...

. In 1996, he received the A. A. Friedmann Prize of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Since 1991, he has been a co-editor of the ''JETP Letters''; since 1992, the ''International Journal of Modern Physics D''; from 1993 to 1996, ''Classical and Quantum Gravity''; and, from 1989 to 1997, ''General Relativity and Gravitation''.

Honors and awards

In 2009, Starobinsky and

Viatcheslav Mukhanov Viatcheslav Fyodorovich Mukhanov (russian: Вячесла́в Фёдорович Муха́нов; born October 2, 1956) is a Soviet/Russian born German theoretical physicist and cosmologist. He is best known for the theory of Quantum Origin of t ...

won the Tomalla Prize, with Starobinsky cited for his contributions to the theory of cosmological inflation and specifically, for the calculation of the gravitational radiation generated in the inflationary phase of the universe. In 2010, Starobinsky received the Oskar Klein Medal. Starobinsky and Mukhanov received, in 2012, the Amaldi Medal and, in 2013, the

Gruber Prize in Cosmology The Gruber Prize in Cosmology, established in 2000, is one of three prestigious international awards worth US$500,000 made by the Gruber Foundation, a non-profit organization based at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. Since 2001, the G ...

. In 2014, Starobinsky, together with

of the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of th ...

and

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is conside ...

, was a co-recipient of the

awarded by the

Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters ( no, Det Norske Videnskaps-Akademi, DNVA) is a learned society based in Oslo, Norway. Its purpose is to support the advancement of science and scholarship in Norway. History The Royal Frederick Unive ...

. In 2019, he received, together with

and

Rashid Sunyaev Rashid Alievich Sunyaev ( tt-Cyrl, Рәшит Гали улы Сөнәев, russian: Раши́д Али́евич Сюня́ев; born 1 March 1943 in Tashkent, USSR) is a German, Soviet, and Russian astrophysicist of Tatar descent. He got his ...

, the

Dirac Medal The Dirac Medal is the name of four awards in the field of theoretical physics, computational chemistry, and mathematics, awarded by different organizations, named in honour of Professor Paul Dirac, one of the great theoretical physicists of the 20 ...

, (ICTP).

Political positions

In February 2022, he signed an open letter by Russian scientists condemning the

2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine On 24 February 2022, in a major escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian War, which began in 2014. The invasion has resulted in tens of thousands of deaths on both sides. It has caused Europe's largest refugee crisis since World War II. A ...

References

External links

Homepage

CV, pdf
{{DEFAULTSORT:Starobinsky, Alexei 1948 births Russian astrophysicists Russian cosmologists Soviet astrophysicists Soviet cosmologists Moscow State University alumni Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology faculty Living people Members of the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina Members of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters Full Members of the Russian Academy of Sciences Foreign Fellows of the Indian National Science Academy Foreign associates of the National Academy of Sciences Russian activists against the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine Kavli Prize laureates in Astrophysics Fellows of the American Physical Society

Early life

Honors and awards

Political positions

See also

References

External links