Steven L. Detweiler was a
theoretical physicist
Theoretical physics is a branch of physics that employs mathematical models and abstractions of physical objects and systems to rationalize, explain and predict natural phenomena. This is in contrast to experimental physics, which uses experim ...
and professor of physics at the
University of Florida
The University of Florida (Florida or UF) is a public land-grant research university in Gainesville, Florida. It is a senior member of the State University System of Florida, traces its origins to 1853, and has operated continuously on its ...
best known for proposing
pulsar timing array A pulsar timing array (PTA) is a set of pulsars which is analysed to search for correlated signatures in the pulse arrival times. There are many applications for pulsar timing arrays. The best known is the use of an array of millisecond pulsars to ...
s as a means to detect
gravitational waves
Gravitational waves are waves of the intensity of gravity generated by the accelerated masses of an orbital binary system that propagate as waves outward from their source at the speed of light. They were first proposed by Oliver Heaviside in 1 ...
,
an idea that led to the discovery of a stochastic
gravitational wave background
The gravitational wave background (also GWB and stochastic background) is a random gravitational-wave signal potentially detectable by gravitational wave detection experiments. Since the background is supposed to be statistically random, it has ...
in 2023.
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Background
Detweiler received his bachelor's degree from Princeton University in 1969 and his
Ph.D.
A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is a ...
from the University of Chicago in 1976 under the supervision of James R. Ipser. In 2013, he was elected to a fellowship of the
American Physical Society in recognition of ''his many and varied contributions to gravitational physics''.
Detweiler's research focused on the dynamics of stars and
black holes
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 defo ...
, as well as on the production and observation of gravitational waves. In 1975 together with
Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar
Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar (; ) (19 October 1910 – 21 August 1995) was an Indian-American theoretical physicist who spent his professional life in the United States. He shared the 1983 Nobel Prize for Physics with William A. Fowler for ".. ...
, Detweiler calculated the effects of fluctuations on black holes. This is important for understanding the stability of black holes, as well as the later stages of the dynamics of black hole mergers. In 1979, Detweiler proposed the idea of a
pulsar timing array A pulsar timing array (PTA) is a set of pulsars which is analysed to search for correlated signatures in the pulse arrival times. There are many applications for pulsar timing arrays. The best known is the use of an array of millisecond pulsars to ...
to measure gravitational waves with wavelengths on the scale of
light-years
A light-year, alternatively spelled light year, is a large unit of length used to express astronomical distances and is equivalent to about 9.46 trillion kilometers (), or 5.88 trillion miles ().One trillion here is taken to be 101 ...
.
This built upon an earlier proposal by
Mikhail Sazhin Mikhail Sazhin may refer to:
* Mikhail Sazhin (astrophysicist) (born 1951), Russian astrophysicist
* Mikhail Sazhin (colonel) (1899–1971), Russian military leader
* Mikhail Sazhin (painter) (1818–1885), Russian landscape painter
* Mikhail S ...
to use individual pulsars.
The idea was first taken up experimentally by Foster and
Backer
Backer is a surname. Notable people with the surname include:
* Agathe Backer-Grøndahl (1847–1907), Norwegian pianist and composer
* Augustin de Backer (1809–1873), Roman Catholic bibliographer
* Brad Backer (born 1956), Australian rugby le ...
in 1990,
[
] and today globally there are five
active pulsar timing array experiments. In 2023, this idea led to the discovery of a stochastic gravitational wave background by the
NANOGrav
The North American Nanohertz Observatory for Gravitational Waves (NANOGrav) is a consortium of astronomers who share a common goal of detecting gravitational waves via regular observations of an ensemble of millisecond pulsars using the Green Bank ...
experiment and other
pulsar timing array A pulsar timing array (PTA) is a set of pulsars which is analysed to search for correlated signatures in the pulse arrival times. There are many applications for pulsar timing arrays. The best known is the use of an array of millisecond pulsars to ...
experiments.
References
External links
Personal homepage
{{DEFAULTSORT:Detweiler, Steven L.
2016 deaths
Theoretical physicists