Rashid Alievich Sunyaev ( tt-Cyrl, Рәшит Гали улы Сөнәев, russian: Раши́д Али́евич Сюня́ев; born 1 March 1943 in

Tashkent Tashkent (, uz, Toshkent, Тошкент/, ) (from russian: Ташкент), or Toshkent (; ), also historically known as Chach is the capital and largest city of Uzbekistan. It is the most populous city in Central Asia, with a population of 2 ...

USSR The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nati ...

) is a

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) **Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ge ...

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 Russian astrophysicist of

Tatar The Tatars ()Tatar
in the Collins English Dictionary is an umbrella term for different

descent. He got his MS degree from the

Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology (MIPT; russian: Московский Физико-Технический институт, also known as PhysTech), is a public research university located in Moscow Oblast, Russia. It prepares speciali ...

(MIPT) in 1966. He became a professor at MIPT in 1974. Sunyaev was the head of the High Energy Astrophysics Department 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 has been chief scientist of the Academy's Space Research Institute since 1992. He has also been a director of the

Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics The Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics (MPA) is a research institute located in Garching, just north of Munich, Bavaria, Germany. It is one of many scientific research institutes belonging to the Max Planck Society. The MPA is widely consi ...

Garching Garching bei München (''Garching near Munich'') or Garching is a town in Bavaria, Germany, near Munich. It is the home of several research institutes and university departments on its campus. It became a city on 14 September 1990. Location The ...

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwee ...

since 1996, and Maureen and John Hendricks Distinguished Visiting Professor in the School of Natural Sciences at the

Institute for Advanced Study The Institute for Advanced Study (IAS), located in Princeton, New Jersey, in the United States, is an independent center for theoretical research and intellectual inquiry. It has served as the academic home of internationally preeminent schola ...

in Princeton since 2010.

Works

Sunyaev and Yakov B. Zeldovich developed the theory for the evolution of density fluctuations in the early universe. They predicted the pattern of acoustic fluctuations that have been clearly seen by WMAP and other CMB experiments in the microwave sky and in the large-scale distribution of galaxies. Sunyaev and Zeldovich stated in their 1970 paper, "A detailed investigation of the spectrum of fluctuations may, in principle, lead to an understanding of the nature of initial density perturbations since a distinct periodic dependence of the spectral density of perturbations on wavelength (mass) is peculiar to adiabatic perturbations." CMB experiments have now seen this distinctive scale in temperature and polarization measurements. Large-scale structure observations have seen this scale in galaxy clustering measurements. With Yakov B. Zeldovich, at the Moscow Institute of Applied Mathematics, he proposed what is known as the Sunyaev-Zeldovich effect, which is due to

electrons The electron ( or ) is a subatomic particle with a negative one elementary electric charge. Electrons belong to the first generation of the lepton particle family, and are generally thought to be elementary particles because they have n ...

associated with gas in

galaxy cluster A galaxy cluster, or a cluster of galaxies, is a structure that consists of anywhere from hundreds to thousands of galaxies that are bound together by gravity, with typical masses ranging from 1014 to 1015 solar masses. They are the second-lar ...

s scattering the

cosmic microwave background radiation In Big Bang cosmology the cosmic microwave background (CMB, CMBR) is electromagnetic radiation that is a remnant from an early stage of the universe, also known as "relic radiation". The CMB is faint cosmic background radiation filling all space ...

. Sunyaev and Nikolay I. Shakura developed a model of

accretion Accretion may refer to: Science * Accretion (astrophysics), the formation of planets and other bodies by collection of material through gravity * Accretion (meteorology), the process by which water vapor in clouds forms water droplets around nucl ...

onto

black hole A black hole is a region of spacetime where gravity is so strong that nothing, including light or other electromagnetic waves, has enough energy to escape it. The theory of general relativity predicts that a sufficiently compact mass can def ...

s, from a disk, and he has proposed a signature for X-radiation from matter spiraling into a black hole. He has collaborated in important studies of the early universe, including the recombination of hydrogen and the formation of the

. He led the team which operated the X-ray observatory attached to the Kvant-1 module of the

Mir ''Mir'' (russian: Мир, ; ) was a space station that operated in low Earth orbit from 1986 to 2001, operated by the Soviet Union and later by Russia. ''Mir'' was the first modular space station and was assembled in orbit from 1986 to&n ...

space station A space station is a spacecraft capable of supporting a human crew in orbit for an extended period of time, and is therefore a type of space habitat. It lacks major propulsion or landing systems. An orbital station or an orbital space station ...

and also the GRANAT orbiting X-ray observatory. Kvant made the first detection of X-rays from a supernova in 1987. His team is currently preparing the Spectrum-X-Gamma International Astrophysical Project and is working with

INTEGRAL In mathematics, an integral assigns numbers to functions in a way that describes displacement, area, volume, and other concepts that arise by combining infinitesimal data. The process of finding integrals is called integration. Along with ...

spacecraft data. At Garching he is working in the fields of theoretical high energy

astrophysics Astrophysics is a science that employs the methods and principles of physics and chemistry in the study of astronomical objects and phenomena. As one of the founders of the discipline said, Astrophysics "seeks to ascertain the nature of the h ...

and

physical cosmology Physical cosmology is a branch of cosmology concerned with the study of cosmological models. A cosmological model, or simply cosmology, provides a description of the largest-scale structures and dynamics of the universe and allows study of f ...

and participates in the data interpretation of the ESA Planck spacecraft mission.

Honors and awards

* 1984 - Member of the

* 1988 - Bruno Rossi Prize for his contributions to understanding cosmic X-ray sources, especially the structure of accretion disks around black holes, the X-ray spectra of compact objects, and the Mir-based discovery of hard X-ray emission from supernova 1987A * 1991 - Foreign Associate of USA

National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the Nat ...

* 1995 -

Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society The Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society is the highest award given by the Royal Astronomical Society (RAS). The RAS Council have "complete freedom as to the grounds on which it is awarded" and it can be awarded for any reason. Past awar ...

* 2000 -

Bruce Medal The Catherine Wolfe Bruce Gold Medal is awarded every year by the Astronomical Society of the Pacific for outstanding lifetime contributions to astronomy. It is named after Catherine Wolfe Bruce, an American patroness of astronomy, and was fi ...

for a lifetime of outstanding research in astronomy * 2000 - State Prize of

Russian Federation 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-eig ...

for research of Black Holes and Neutron stars with GRANAT X-ray and gamma-ray astrophysical observatory in 1990-1998Awards and best publications
ICR RAS * 2002 - Alexander Friedman Prize by Russian Academy of Sciences for the publications on the reduction of brightness of cosmic microwave background radiation in the direction of clusters of

galaxies A galaxy is a system of stars, stellar remnants, interstellar gas, dust, dark matter, bound together by gravity. The word is derived from the Greek ' (), literally 'milky', a reference to the Milky Way galaxy that contains the Solar System ...

* 2003 - Heineman Prize for outstanding work in astrophysics * 2003 - Gruber Prize in Cosmology for pioneering studies on the nature of the cosmic microwave background and its interaction with intervening matter that led to new cosmological models * 2003 - Member of German Academy of Natural Scientists Leopoldina * 2004 - Foreign Member of the

Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences The Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences ( nl, Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen, abbreviated: KNAW) is an organization dedicated to the advancement of science and literature in the Netherlands. The academy is housed ...

* 2007 - International Member of the

American Philosophical Society The American Philosophical Society (APS), founded in 1743 in Philadelphia, is a scholarly organization that promotes knowledge in the sciences and humanities through research, professional meetings, publications, library resources, and communit ...

* 2008 -

Crafoord Prize The Crafoord Prize is an annual science prize established in 1980 by Holger Crafoord, a Swedish industrialist, and his wife Anna-Greta Crafoord. The Prize is awarded in partnership between the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and the Crafoord Foun ...

for decisive contributions to high-energy astrophysics and cosmology. * 2008 - Henry Norris Russell Lectureship in 2008 * 2008 - Karl Schwarzschild Medal of the German Astronomische Gesellschaft * 2009 - Foreign Member of the Royal Society * 2009 -

King Faisal International Prize The King Faisal Prize ( ar, جائزة الملك فيصل, formerly King Faisal International Prize), is an annual award sponsored by King Faisal Foundation presented to "dedicated men and women whose contributions make a positive difference". T ...

for Science (Physics) * 2011 -

Kyoto Prize The is Japan's highest private award for lifetime achievement in the arts and sciences. It is given not only to those that are top representatives of their own respective fields, but to "those who have contributed significantly to the scientific, ...

* 2012 - Benjamin Franklin Medal in Physics from the

Franklin Institute The Franklin Institute is a science museum and the center of science education and research in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It is named after the American scientist and statesman Benjamin Franklin. It houses the Benjamin Franklin National Memori ...

* 2013 - Order of Merit of Republic of Tatarstan, Russia * 2013 - Gold Medal of the Tatarstan Academy of Sciences (Kazan, Russia) * 2014 - Einstein Professorship (Chinese Academy of Sciences) * 2019 - Dirac Medal, (ICTP) jointly with

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 ...

and

Alexei Starobinsky Alexei Alexandrovich Starobinsky (russian: Алексе́й Алекса́ндрович Староби́нский; born 19 April 1948) is a Soviet and Russian astrophysicist and cosmologist. He received the Kavli Prize in Astrophysics "for p ...

* 2019 - Nick Kylafis Lectureship * 2023 - Max Planck Medal of the DPGMax Planck Medal 2023
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Literature

References

External links

Syunyaev Rashid Alievich
Site of Russian Academy of Sciences
Biography
at the website of

Tatarstan The Republic of Tatarstan (russian: Республика Татарстан, Respublika Tatarstan, p=rʲɪsˈpublʲɪkə tətɐrˈstan; tt-Cyrl, Татарстан Республикасы), or simply Tatarstan (russian: Татарстан, tt ...

Academy of Sciences
Rashid Sunyaev
Institute for Advanced Study {{DEFAULTSORT:Sunyaev, Rashid Alievich 1943 births Living people Soviet cosmologists Russian astrophysicists Soviet astrophysicists Soviet Muslims Russian inventors Tatar people of Russia Corresponding Members of the USSR Academy of Sciences Full Members of the Russian Academy of Sciences Foreign Members of the Royal Society Kyoto laureates in Basic Sciences Members of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences Academic staff of the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology alumni Recipients of the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society Scientists from Tashkent Recipients of the Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany Russian Muslims Winners of the Dannie Heineman Prize for Astrophysics Foreign associates of the National Academy of Sciences Nuclear weapons program of the Soviet Union Max Planck Institute directors tt:Räşid Sönniev