Bruce Allen (physicist)

Last updated

Bruce Allen
Bruce Allen GW150914 crop.jpg
Bruce Allen in 2016
Born (1959-05-11) May 11, 1959 (age 65)
Education
Scientific career
Academic advisors Stephen Hawking, Rainer Weiss
Doctoral students Robert R. Caldwell

Bruce Allen (born May 11, 1959) is an American physicist and director at the Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics in Hannover, Germany, [1] and founder and leader of the distributed volunteer computing project Einstein@Home project. [2] He is a honorary physics professor at Leibniz University Hannover [1] [3] , an adjunct physics professor at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee [1] [4] , and also the initiator / project leader of smartmontools hard disk utility. [5]

Contents

He has done research work on models of the very early universe (inflationary cosmology, cosmic strings), the detection and data analysis of gravitational waves, [1] and has expertise in the development and operation of large computer clusters. [5] [6] Allen currently leads a research group working on the detection of gravitational waves in data from ground-based interferometric detectors and from pulsar timing arrays, and on radio, gamma-ray and gravitational-wave signals from rotating neutron stars. [7] Allen was one of the first scientists to become aware of the initial detection of GW150914 at LIGO, in September 2015. [8] [9] Allen's research work has been supported by the US National Science Foundation between 1987 and 2018. [10]

Early life and education

Allen graduated from Wayland High School, Wayland, Massachusetts, US, in 1976. [11] He obtained his Bachelor of Science in physics in 1980 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology under the supervision of Rainer Weiss. Allen completed his PhD in physics in 1984 at University of Cambridge with his thesis “Vacuum Energy and General Relativity” under the supervision of Stephen Hawking. [1] [12] [13] From 1983 to 1985 he was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of California, Santa Barbara and from 1985 to 1986 at Tufts University. From 1986 to 1987 he was a chercheur associé (research associate) at Paris Observatory in Meudon. [1]

Career and research

In 1987 Allen became a research assistant professor at Tufts University. He joined the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee in 1989 as assistant professor of physics, was promoted to associate professor of physics in 1992 and to a full professor of physics in 1997. In 2007 he became a director at the Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics (Albert Einstein Institute) in Hanover, Germany and an adjunct professor at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee. Since 2008 he is also a honorary professor of physics at Leibniz University Hannover. [1] [14]

Allen has worked on early universe cosmology, inflationary models of the early universe, [15] properties of de Sitter space, [16] and curved-space quantum field theory. [1] He further worked on networks of cosmic strings [17] and the gravitational radiation emitted by them. [18] He made contributions to the detection and data analysis of gravitational waves of different types: from a stochastic background, [19] from inspiraling compact binaries, [20] and continuous, near-sinusoidal signals. [21] Allen was a member of the executive committee of the LIGO Scientific Collaboration from 1997 to 2018. [1] He also worked on designing a runtime system for volunteer computing, [22] and on using the Einstein@Home project to discover new radio [23] [24] and gamma-ray pulsars [25] [26] in data from large radio telescopes and the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope. He has also worked data analysis for pulsar timing arrays. This includes research on the variance of the Hellings-Downs correlation, [27] [28] which is a central measure for the detection of gravitational waves with pulsar timing arrays.

Between 1987 and 2018, Bruce Allen's research has been supported by the US National Science Foundation through 14 grants totaling approximately $10 million. [1] [10]

Awards

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 "Curriculum Vitae Prof. Bruce Allen". www.aei.mpg.de. Archived from the original on February 25, 2025. Retrieved February 25, 2025.
  2. ↑ "Contributors | Einstein@Home". einsteinathome.org. Archived from the original on February 25, 2025. Retrieved February 25, 2025.
  3. ↑ "Prof. Dr. Bruce Allen – Faculty of Mathematics and Physics – Leibniz University Hannover". Leibniz Universität Hannover. Archived from the original on February 25, 2025. Retrieved February 25, 2025.
  4. ↑ "Bruce Allen". Physics. Archived from the original on February 25, 2025. Retrieved February 25, 2025.
  5. 1 2 "Team – smartmontools". smartmontools. December 23, 2003. Retrieved July 16, 2023.
  6. ↑ "Atlas Computing Cluster, section "Awards and history"". www.aei.mpg.de. Archived from the original on February 25, 2025. Retrieved February 25, 2025.
  7. ↑ "Observational Relativity and Cosmology". www.aei.mpg.de. Archived from the original on February 25, 2025. Retrieved February 25, 2025.
  8. ↑ Mokler, Felicitas. ""The signal caught our eye immediately"". www.mpg.de. Archived from the original on December 9, 2024. Retrieved February 25, 2025.
  9. ↑ Cho, Adrian (February 11, 2016). "Here's the first person to spot those gravitational waves". Science. American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). doi:10.1126/science.aaf4039. ISSN   0036-8075.
  10. 1 2 "NSF Award Search: Simple Search Results". www.nsf.gov. Retrieved February 25, 2025.
  11. ↑ "Alumni List". www.wayland.k12.ma.us. Archived from the original on February 25, 2025. Retrieved February 25, 2025.
  12. ↑ "Bruce Allen - The Mathematics Genealogy Project". www.mathgenealogy.org. Retrieved February 25, 2025.
  13. ↑ "Vacuum energy and general relativity | WorldCat.org". search.worldcat.org (in German). Retrieved February 25, 2025.
  14. ↑ "Allen, Bruce". www.mpg.de. Retrieved February 25, 2025.
  15. ↑ Allen, B. (April 15, 1988). "Stochastic gravity-wave background in inflationary-universe models". Physical Review D. 37 (8): 2078–2085. Bibcode:1988PhRvD..37.2078A. doi:10.1103/PhysRevD.37.2078. PMID   9958909.
  16. ↑ Allen, Bruce (December 15, 1985). "Vacuum states in de Sitter space". Physical Review D. 32 (12): 3136–3149. Bibcode:1985PhRvD..32.3136A. doi:10.1103/PhysRevD.32.3136. hdl:11858/00-001M-0000-0013-5E01-B. PMID   9956107.
  17. ↑ Allen, B.; Shellard, E. P. S. (January 8, 1990). "Cosmic-string evolution: A numerical simulation". Physical Review Letters. 64 (2): 119–122. Bibcode:1990PhRvL..64..119A. doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.64.119. hdl:11858/00-001M-0000-0013-5CE7-6. PMID   10041655.
  18. ↑ Allen, B.; Shellard, E. P. S. (March 15, 1992). "Gravitational radiation from cosmic strings". Physical Review D. 45 (6): 1898–1912. Bibcode:1992PhRvD..45.1898A. doi:10.1103/PhysRevD.45.1898. hdl:11858/00-001M-0000-0013-5CA7-3. PMID   10014565.
  19. ↑ Allen, Bruce; Romano, Joseph D. (March 31, 1999). "Detecting a stochastic background of gravitational radiation: Signal processing strategies and sensitivities". Physical Review D. 59 (10): 102001. arXiv: gr-qc/9710117 . Bibcode:1999PhRvD..59j2001A. doi:10.1103/PhysRevD.59.102001.
  20. ↑ Allen, Bruce; Anderson, Warren G.; Brady, Patrick R.; Brown, Duncan A.; Creighton, Jolien D. E. (June 19, 2012). "FINDCHIRP: An algorithm for detection of gravitational waves from inspiraling compact binaries". Physical Review D. 85 (12): 122006. arXiv: gr-qc/0509116 . Bibcode:2012PhRvD..85l2006A. doi:10.1103/PhysRevD.85.122006.
  21. ↑ Allen, Bruce; Papa, Maria Alessandra; Schutz, Bernard F. (November 27, 2002). "Optimal strategies for sinusoidal signal detection". Physical Review D. 66 (10): 102003. arXiv: gr-qc/0206032 . Bibcode:2002PhRvD..66j2003A. doi:10.1103/PhysRevD.66.102003. hdl:11858/00-001M-0000-0013-0F3B-4.
  22. ↑ Anderson, David P.; Christensen, Carl; Allen, Bruce (November 11, 2006). "Grid resource management---Designing a runtime system for volunteer computing". Proceedings of the 2006 ACM/IEEE conference on Supercomputing - SC '06. New York, NY, USA: Association for Computing Machinery. pp. 126–es. doi:10.1145/1188455.1188586. ISBN   978-0-7695-2700-0.
  23. ↑ Allen, B.; Knispel, B.; Cordes, J. M.; Deneva, J. S.; Hessels, J. W. T.; Anderson, D.; Aulbert, C.; Bock, O.; Brazier, A.; Chatterjee, S.; Demorest, P. B.; Eggenstein, H. B.; Fehrmann, H.; Gotthelf, E. V.; Hammer, D. (July 29, 2013). "THE EINSTEIN@HOME SEARCH FOR RADIO PULSARS AND PSR J2007+2722 DISCOVERY". The Astrophysical Journal. 773 (2): 91. arXiv: 1303.0028 . Bibcode:2013ApJ...773...91A. doi:10.1088/0004-637X/773/2/91. ISSN   0004-637X.
  24. ↑ Knispel, B.; Eatough, R. P.; Kim, H.; Keane, E. F.; Allen, B.; Anderson, D.; Aulbert, C.; Bock, O.; Crawford, F.; Eggenstein, H.-B.; Fehrmann, H.; Hammer, D.; Kramer, M.; Lyne, A. G.; Machenschalk, B. (August 20, 2013). "EINSTEIN@HOME DISCOVERY OF 24 PULSARS IN THE PARKES MULTI-BEAM PULSAR SURVEY". The Astrophysical Journal. 774 (2): 93. arXiv: 1302.0467 . Bibcode:2013ApJ...774...93K. doi:10.1088/0004-637X/774/2/93. ISSN   0004-637X.
  25. ↑ Clark, C. J.; Wu, J.; Pletsch, H. J.; Guillemot, L.; Allen, B.; Aulbert, C.; Beer, C.; Bock, O.; Cuéllar, A.; Eggenstein, H. B.; Fehrmann, H.; Kramer, M.; Machenschalk, B.; Nieder, L. (January 10, 2017). "The Einstein@Home Gamma-Ray Pulsar Survey. I. Search Methods, Sensitivity, and Discovery of New Young Gamma-Ray Pulsars". The Astrophysical Journal. 834 (2): 106. arXiv: 1611.01015 . Bibcode:2017ApJ...834..106C. doi: 10.3847/1538-4357/834/2/106 . ISSN   0004-637X.
  26. ↑ Nieder, L.; Clark, C. J.; Kandel, D.; Romani, R. W.; Bassa, C. G.; Allen, B.; Ashok, A.; Cognard, I.; Fehrmann, H.; Freire, P.; Karuppusamy, R.; Kramer, M.; Li, D.; Machenschalk, B.; Pan, Z. (October 1, 2020). "Discovery of a Gamma-Ray Black Widow Pulsar by GPU-accelerated Einstein@Home". The Astrophysical Journal Letters. 902 (2): L46. arXiv: 2009.01513 . Bibcode:2020ApJ...902L..46N. doi: 10.3847/2041-8213/abbc02 . ISSN   2041-8205.
  27. ↑ Allen, Bruce (February 15, 2023). "Variance of the Hellings-Downs correlation". Physical Review D. 107 (4): 043018. arXiv: 2205.05637 . Bibcode:2023PhRvD.107d3018A. doi:10.1103/PhysRevD.107.043018.
  28. ↑ Romano, J D; Allen, B (September 5, 2024). "Answers to frequently asked questions about the pulsar timing array Hellings and Downs curve". Classical and Quantum Gravity. 41 (17): 175008. arXiv: 2308.05847 . Bibcode:2024CQGra..41q5008R. doi:10.1088/1361-6382/ad4c4c. ISSN   0264-9381.
  29. ↑ "APS 2020 Richard A. Isaacson Award in Gravitational-Wave Science for Bruce Allen and Bernard Schutz". www.aei.mpg.de. Retrieved February 25, 2025.
  30. ↑ "Richard A. Isaacson Award in Gravitational-Wave Science". www.aps.org. Retrieved February 26, 2025.
  31. ↑ "HEAD AAS Rossi Prize Winners | High Energy Astrophysics Division". head.aas.org. Retrieved February 25, 2025.
  32. ↑ Simion @Yonescat, Florin. "Group Award (A)". The Royal Astronomical Society. Retrieved February 25, 2025.
  33. ↑ "Rainer Weiss, Kip S. Thorne, Barry C. Barish and la Colaboración Científica Ligo". Archived from the original on December 3, 2024. Retrieved February 25, 2025.
  34. ↑ "einstein house bern > news". June 25, 2017. Archived from the original on June 25, 2017. Retrieved February 25, 2025.
  35. ↑ "Breakthrough Prize – Special Breakthrough Prize In Fundamental Physics Awarded For Detection Of Gravitational Waves 100 Years After Albert Einstein Predicted Their Existence". breakthroughprize.org. Retrieved February 25, 2025.
  36. ↑ "2016 Gruber Cosmology Prize | Gruber Foundation". gruber.yale.edu. Retrieved February 25, 2025.
  37. ↑ "Niedersächsischer Staatspreis 2016 geht an Physiker aus Hannover". Nds. Staatskanzlei (in German). May 31, 2016. Retrieved July 16, 2023.
  38. ↑ "Lower Saxony State Prize was awarded to Bruce Allen, Alessandra Buonanno and Karsten Danzmann". www.aei.mpg.de. Retrieved February 26, 2025.
  39. ↑ "APS Fellows Archive". www.aps.org. Retrieved February 25, 2025.
  40. ↑ "Gravity Research Foundation". Gravity Research Foundation, abstracts of award winning and honorable mention essays (1990). Archived from the original on February 26, 2025. Retrieved February 26, 2025.
  41. ↑ "Marshall Scholar Alumni by Year from Association of Marshall Scholars". Association of Marshall Scholars. Archived from the original on February 26, 2025. Retrieved February 26, 2025.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.