Each year, we honour students with prizes for:
The publication prizes are given for work published during the last 2 years by PhD students in each of the 3 research areas. The prizes are awarded at the annual STAG lecture.
Best publication in gravitational physics: Yashaswi Gangwar
For her paper “Applying the starquake model to study the formation of elastic mountains on spinning neutron stars”.
The paper concerns gravitational wave emission from neutron stars – a topic whose importance was recognized with the Nobel Prize in 2017. While the gravitational waves that have been measured so far all originated from binary neutron star systems, Yashaswi’s theoretical work looks ahead towards detecting gravitational waves emitted by individual neutron stars. In her work she studied how fast-spinning neutron stars can develop an asymmetric shape that leads to the emission of gravitational waves. This work helps gravitational wave astronomers to decide which stars to target and what signals to look for.
Best publication in astrophysics: Matthew Stepney
For his paper “A Big Red Dot: Scattered light, host galaxy signatures and multi-phase gas flows in a heavily reddened quasar at cosmic noon”.
Matthew is the lead author on this study of merging galaxies in the very distant universe, which are heavily obscured by interstellar dust. Such dust-obscured galaxies and their super-massive black holes are thought to play an important yet poorly understood role in the evolution of massive galaxies. Matthew has analysed complex data from the state-of-the-art European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope to produce the first detailed spectroscopic analysis of such a galaxy merger. The results have implications for our understanding of how black holes grow.
Best publications in high-energy physics (jointly): Ernesto Bianchi and Savvas Pitsinigkos
Ernesto Bianchi receives the prize for his paper “Bulk renormalization and the AdS/CFT correspondence”. Ernesto’s paper solves an important theoretical problem: it establishes some of the basic and most well-known rules of quantum field theory for universes with negative curvature. Even though such universes differ from our own, they are of great importance in string theory and quantum gravity. Ernesto developed a completely new and general methodology to perform some of the most subtle quantum field theory calculations in these spacetimes.
Savvas Pitsinigkos receives the prize for his paper "Chiral crossover vs chiral density wave". Savvas studied an exotic state of matter that can be found in neutron stars: dense nuclear matter. Savvas solved some long-standing theoretical problems that allowed him for the first time to gain a deep understanding of the physics of chiral density waves in such stars. This work opens the door to a deeper understanding of a whole class of models that are being used to describe extremely dense matter.
Best publication in gravitational physics
Best publication in high-energy physics
Best publication in astrophysics
Joint winners:
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