Claudia de Rham

Last updated

Claudia de Rham
Born (1978-03-29) 29 March 1978 (age 46)
Alma mater École Polytechnique
École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne
University of Cambridge
Known for de Rham–Gabadadze–Tolley massive gravity
Awards Blavatnik Award (2020)
Adams Prize (2018)
Scientific career
Doctoral advisor Anne-Christine Davis

Claudia de Rham is a British theoretical physicist of Swiss origin working at the interface of gravity, cosmology, and particle physics. She is based at Imperial College London. She was one of the UK finalists in the Physical Sciences and Engineering category of the Blavatnik Award for Young Scientists in 2018 for revitalizing the theory of massive gravity and won the award in 2020.

Contents

Early life and education

de Rham was born in Lausanne. [1] She completed her undergraduate studies in France, receiving a Diplôme d'Ingénieur in physics at the École Polytechnique in Paris in 2000. [2] She received a master's degree in physics from the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne in 2001. [2] In 2002, de Rham moved to the UK, achieving a PhD in the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics at the University of Cambridge on "braneworld cosmology beyond the low-energy limit". [3] She has trained as a pilot and made it through several stages of the European Space Agency's astronaut selection process. [4]

Research

After earning her PhD, de Rham went to Montreal to join the physics department at McGill University. [5] [6] She moved to McMaster University in Hamilton and the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Waterloo, Ontario, in 2006, where she worked in a joint postdoctoral position in cosmology. [7] In 2010, she joined the University of Geneva as an assistant professor. [8] [9] She moved to Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, in 2011 and became an associate professor there in 2016. [10] [11] She joined Imperial College London in 2016. That year, she was awarded a £100,000 Wolfson Merit Award from the Royal Society. [12] [13]

Her research is in the area of theoretical cosmology, and she explores gravitational models that could explain the accelerated expansion of the universe. de Rham is recognised as a researcher at the forefront of the development of theories of massive gravity, where the particle carrier of the gravitational force, the graviton, may be massive. [14] In 2010, she constructed a nonlinear[ clarification needed ] theory of a massive graviton, which is theoretically consistent and ghost-free. [15] [16] The massive gravity is now known as "de Rham-Gabadadze-Tolley (dRGT) theory", owing to its discovery by de Rham, Gregory Gabadadze, and Andrew J. Tolley. [15] Her research helps tackle the problem of the cosmological constant and could describe the accelerated expansion of the universe as a purely gravitational effect, where massive gravitons are responsible for dark energy. [2]

In 2015, she gave a TEDx talk titled "Nature of the Graviton". [14] [17] She has discussed the underrepresentation of women in physics with Ideas Roadshow. [18] She gives regular public lectures about theoretical cosmology. [19] [20] [21] [22]

de Rham was interviewed by Morgan Freeman in season 8 of Through the Wormhole .

Publications

In November 2023, de Rham co-authored The Encyclopedia of Cosmology, Set 2: Frontiers in Cosmology, Volume 1: Modified Gravity, with Andrew J Tolley, also of Imperial College London.

Awards and leadership roles

See also

Related Research Articles

In theories of quantum gravity, the graviton is the hypothetical quantum of gravity, an elementary particle that mediates the force of gravitational interaction. There is no complete quantum field theory of gravitons due to an outstanding mathematical problem with renormalization in general relativity. In string theory, believed by some to be a consistent theory of quantum gravity, the graviton is a massless state of a fundamental string.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Quantum gravity</span> Description of gravity using discrete values

Quantum gravity (QG) is a field of theoretical physics that seeks to describe gravity according to the principles of quantum mechanics. It deals with environments in which neither gravitational nor quantum effects can be ignored, such as in the vicinity of black holes or similar compact astrophysical objects, such as neutron stars as well as in the early stages of the universe moments after the Big Bang.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lisa Randall</span> American theoretical physicist

Lisa Randall is an American theoretical physicist and Frank B. Baird, Jr. Professor of Science at Harvard University. Her research includes the fundamental forces of nature and dimensions of space. She studies the Standard Model, supersymmetry, possible solutions to the hierarchy problem concerning the relative weakness of gravity, cosmology of dimensions, baryogenesis, cosmological inflation, and dark matter. She contributed to the Randall–Sundrum model, first published in 1999 with Raman Sundrum.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lawrence Krauss</span> American particle physicist and cosmologist

Lawrence Maxwell Krauss is a Canadian-American theoretical physicist and cosmologist who taught at Arizona State University (ASU), Yale University, and Case Western Reserve University. He founded ASU's Origins Project in 2008 to investigate fundamental questions about the universe and served as the project's director.

In theoretical physics, massive gravity is a theory of gravity that modifies general relativity by endowing the graviton with a nonzero mass. In the classical theory, this means that gravitational waves obey a massive wave equation and hence travel at speeds below the speed of light.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sean M. Carroll</span> American theoretical cosmologist (born 1966)

Sean Michael Carroll is an American theoretical physicist and philosopher who specializes in quantum mechanics, cosmology, and philosophy of science. Formerly a research professor at the Walter Burke Institute for Theoretical Physics at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) department of physics, he is currently an external professor at the Santa Fe Institute, and the Homewood Professor of Natural Philosophy at Johns Hopkins University. He has been a contributor to the physics blog Cosmic Variance, and has published in scientific journals such as Nature as well as other publications, including The New York Times, Sky & Telescope and New Scientist. He is known for his atheism, his vocal critique of theism and defense of naturalism. He is considered a prolific public speaker and science populariser. In 2007, Carroll was named NSF Distinguished Lecturer by the National Science Foundation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Thanu Padmanabhan</span> Indian physicist and cosmologist (1957–2021)

Thanu Padmanabhan was an Indian theoretical physicist and cosmologist whose research spanned a wide variety of topics in gravitation, structure formation in the universe and quantum gravity. He published nearly 300 papers and reviews in international journals and ten books in these areas. He made several contributions related to the analysis and modelling of dark energy in the universe and the interpretation of gravity as an emergent phenomenon. He was a Distinguished Professor at the Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCAA) at Pune, India.

Gregory Gabadadze is a Georgian theoretical physicist specializing in the field of gravity. He holds the position of Professor of Physics at New York University, where he also serves as the Dean for Science. In his previous roles at NYU, Gabadadze was the Chair of the Department of Physics and the Director of the Center for Cosmology and Particle Physics.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Stephon Alexander</span> Theoretical physicist, musician

Stephon Haigh-Solomon Alexander is a theoretical physicist, cosmologist, musician and author.

Bimetric gravity or bigravity refers to two different classes of theories. The first class of theories relies on modified mathematical theories of gravity in which two metric tensors are used instead of one. The second metric may be introduced at high energies, with the implication that the speed of light could be energy-dependent, enabling models with a variable speed of light.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Luca Pozzi</span>

Luca Pozzi is an Italian artist.

Rachel Bean is a cosmologist and theoretical astrophysicist. She is a professor of astronomy and the interim dean of the Cornell University College of Arts and Sciences.

Rachel A. Rosen is a physicist and associate professor of Theoretical Physics at Carnegie Mellon University. Her research involves quantum field theory, cosmology, astrophysics and massive gravity. In particular, she has investigated the problem of the inconsistencies known as "ghosts," and how to formulate models of massive gravity that avoid them.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hiranya Peiris</span> British astrophysicist (born 1974)

Hiranya Vajramani Peiris is a British astrophysicist at the University of Cambridge, where she holds the Professorship of Astrophysics (1909). She is best known for her work on the cosmic microwave background radiation, and interdisciplinary links between cosmology and high-energy physics. She was one of 27 scientists who received the Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics in 2018 for their "detailed maps of the early universe."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chanda Prescod-Weinstein</span> American cosmologist (born c. 1982)

Chanda Prescod-Weinstein is an American theoretical cosmologist and particle physicist at the University of New Hampshire. She is also an advocate of increasing diversity in science.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Renée Hložek</span> South African cosmologist

Renée Hložek is a South African cosmologist, Professor of Astronomy & Astrophysics at the Dunlap Institute for Astronomy & Astrophysics at the University of Toronto, and an Azrieli Global Scholar within the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research. She studies the cosmic microwave background, Type Ia supernova and baryon acoustic oscillations. She is a Sloan Research Fellow in 2020. Hložek identifies as bisexual.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Valery Rubakov</span> Russian physicist (1955–2022)

Valery Anatolyevich Rubakov was a Russian theoretical physicist. His scientific interests included quantum field theory, elementary particle physics, and cosmology. He was affiliated with the Institute for Nuclear Research (INR) of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow.

Ruth Durrer is a professor of Cosmology at the University of Geneva. She works on the cosmic microwave background, brane cosmology and massive gravity.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anastasia Volovich</span> Physicist

Anastasia Volovich is a professor of physics at Brown University. She works on theoretical physics: quantum field theory, general relativity, string theory and related areas in mathematics.

Cora Dvorkin is an Argentine physicist, who is a professor at the physics department at Harvard University. Dvorkin is a theoretical cosmologist. Her areas of research are: the nature of dark matter, neutrinos and other light relics, and the physics of the early universe. Dvorkin is the Harvard Representative at the newly NSF-funded Institute for Artificial Intelligence and Fundamental Interactions (IAIFI)'s Board. In 2022, she was voted “favorite professor” by the Harvard senior Class of 2023. She has been awarded the 2019 DOE Early Career award and has been named the "2018 Scientist of the year" by the Harvard Foundation for "Salient Contributions to Physics, Cosmology and STEM Education". She has also been awarded a Radcliffe Institute Fellowship and a Shutzer Professorship at the Radcliffe Institute. In 2018 she was awarded a Star Family Challenge prize for Promising Scientific Research, which supports high-risk, high-impact scientific research at Harvard. In 2020, Dvorkin gave a talk on machine learning applied to the search for dark matter as part of the TEDx Río de la Plata event.

References

  1. 1 2 "Alumni Award Recipients". www.epflalumni.ch. Retrieved 17 January 2018.
  2. 1 2 3 "Claudia de Rham | Blavatnik Awards for Young Scientists". blavatnikawards.org. Retrieved 17 January 2018.
  3. ↑ Anna, De Rham, Claudia (2005). "Braneworld cosmology beyond the low-energy limit".{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)[ dead link ]
  4. 1 2 Devlin, Hannah (25 January 2020). "Has physicist's gravity theory solved 'impossible' dark energy riddle?". The Guardian . Retrieved 25 January 2020.
  5. ↑ "McGill Physics: CHEP seminars". www.physics.mcgill.ca. Retrieved 17 January 2018.
  6. ↑ "CHEP Seminars 2007–2008". www.physics.mcgill.ca. Retrieved 17 January 2018.
  7. ↑ "Claudia de Rham | Perimeter Institute". www.perimeterinstitute.ca. Retrieved 17 January 2018.
  8. ↑ "Claudia de Rham". www.perimeterinstitute.ca. Retrieved 17 January 2018.
  9. ↑ "Claudia de Rham | Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics – University of Geneva". cosmology.unige.ch. Retrieved 17 January 2018.
  10. ↑ "Claudia de Rham". www.phys.cwru.edu. Archived from the original on 16 April 2017. Retrieved 17 January 2018.
  11. ↑ "TED | Institute for the Science of Origins". origins.case.edu. Retrieved 17 January 2018.
  12. ↑ "Expanding horizons: throwing new light on dark energy". Imperial College London. Archived from the original on 2 April 2017. Retrieved 17 January 2018.
  13. 1 2 "Claudia de Rham". royalsociety.org. Retrieved 17 January 2018.
  14. 1 2 "Claudia de Rham | TEDxCLE". www.tedxcle.com. Retrieved 17 January 2018.
  15. 1 2 de Rham, Claudia; Gabadadze, Gregory; Tolley, Andrew J. (2011). "Resummation of Massive Gravity". Physical Review Letters. 106 (23): 231101. arXiv: 1011.1232 . Bibcode:2011PhRvL.106w1101D. doi:10.1103/physrevlett.106.231101. PMID   21770493. S2CID   3564069.
  16. ↑ Rham, Claudia de (1 December 2014). "Massive Gravity". Living Reviews in Relativity. 17 (1): 7. arXiv: 1401.4173 . Bibcode:2014LRR....17....7D. doi:10.12942/lrr-2014-7. ISSN   2367-3613. PMC   5256007 . PMID   28179850.
  17. ↑ TEDx Talks (3 February 2016), Nature of the Graviton | Claudia de Rham | TEDxCLESalon , retrieved 17 January 2018
  18. ↑ Roadshow, Ideas (12 November 2017), Gender and physics – Claudia de Rham , retrieved 17 January 2018[ permanent dead link ]
  19. ↑ "Claudia De Rham – Festival Histoire et Cité – archive 2017". Festival Histoire et Cité – archive 2017 (in French). Archived from the original on 18 January 2018. Retrieved 17 January 2018.
  20. ↑ "UK Cosmo at Portsmouth – April 5th 2017". www.icg.port.ac.uk. Retrieved 17 January 2018.
  21. ↑ "Tube: "Graviton Mass Bounds" by Claudia de Rham (Imperial College London) « CP³-Origins". CP³-Origins. Archived from the original on 13 September 2018. Retrieved 17 January 2018.
  22. ↑ "IFT Christmas Workshop – csic.es". www.csic.es (in Spanish). Archived from the original on 18 January 2018. Retrieved 17 January 2018.
  23. 1 2 "Home – Claudia de Rham". www.imperial.ac.uk. Retrieved 17 January 2018.
  24. ↑ "New Initiative Ponders Origins of the Universe | Simons Foundation". Simons Foundation. 21 July 2017. Retrieved 17 January 2018.
  25. ↑ Scheuber, Andrew. "Multi-million EU funding boost for Imperial researchers". Imperial College London. Archived from the original on 25 April 2017. Retrieved 17 January 2018.
  26. ↑ "Awards, etc. – Cambridge University Reporter 6505". www.admin.cam.ac.uk. Retrieved 25 May 2018.
  27. ↑ "Theoretical physicist gets awarded in the 2018 Blavatnik Awards". Science Examiner. 16 January 2018. Retrieved 17 January 2018.
  28. ↑ Dunning, Hayley. "Imperial physicist wins first-of-its-kind science prize". Archived from the original on 16 January 2018. Retrieved 17 January 2018.
  29. ↑ "Three innovative scientists receive US$100,000 (£75,000) each from prestigious Blavatnik Awards for Young Scientists". Blavatnik Awards Young Scientists. New York Academy of Sciences. Retrieved 18 January 2020.
  30. ↑ "New members". American Academy of Arts and Sciences. 2023. Retrieved 21 April 2023.
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.