Robert J. Nemiroff

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Dr. Robert J. Nemiroff is a Professor of Physics at Michigan Technological University. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania in Astronomy and Astrophysics in 1987 and his B.S. from Lehigh University in Engineering Physics in 1982.[1] He is an active researcher with interests that include gamma-ray bursts, gravitational lensing, and cosmology, and is the cofounder and coeditor of Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD),[2] the home page of which receives over a million hits a day, approximately 20% of nasa.gov traffic.[3] He is married and has one daughter.[4]

Research

Nemiroff's research interests include gamma-ray bursts, gravitational lensing, sky monitoring, and cosmology. Among other findings, his research on gamma-ray bursts:

  • showed (along with others) that gamma-ray bursts are consistent with a cosmological distance scale origin before they were discovered to be so distant[5][6]
  • led a team that, along with others, showed a lack of energy-dependence in the speed of photons from distant gamma-ray bursts which implies, in contrast to some theories of quantum gravity, that the universe is smooth below the Planck-length scale, as Einstein had predicted[7][8][9]

In 1986, he predicted the likelihood of microlensing[10] and calculated basic microlensing induced light curves for several possible lens-source configurations in his 1987 thesis.[11] Among his microlensing findings, he, along with others:

  • predicted before observational recovery that microlensing light curves can effectively resolve the surface of source stars[12]
  • showed that microlensing boosts the brightnesses of stars actually below the magnitude limit of a survey over the survey limit[13]

Nemiroff and graduate student Bijunath R. Patla showed that the Sun is a "very interesting gravitational lens,"[14][15] and Nemiroff found that GRB pulses start at the same time at every energy and that they are scale invariant over energy.[16] His complete publication list is available from ADS.

Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD)

Nemiroff is one of two creators and editors of the Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD) website. Started in 1995 by Nemiroff and Dr. Jerry T. Bonnell, APOD is consistently among the most popular astronomy sites.[17] Its home page typically receives over one million hits per day;[18] APOD has served over one billion images [19] since its start. It is translated into more than 20 languages and has social media outlets on Facebook, Google+, Twitter, and various apps.[20]

Astrophysics Source Code Library (ASCL)

Nemiroff and John Wallin established the Astrophysics Source Code Library (ASCL), an online registry of scientist-written software used in astronomy or astrophysics research, in 1999.[21] The ASCL improves the transparency of astrophysics research by making the software used in research discoverable for examination.[22]

Books

References

  1. ↑ "RJN's Bio Page". apod.nasa.gov. Retrieved 2014-02-01. 
  2. ↑ O'Brien, Miles (September 21, 2002). "Astronomy Picture of the Day". CNN Saturday Morning News. Retrieved 22 January 2014. 
  3. ↑ "Alexa". Retrieved 22 January 2014. 
  4. ↑ "About Astronomy Picture of the Day". Retrieved 22 January 2014. 
  5. ↑ Norris, J. P.; Nemiroff, R. J.; Scargle, J. D.; Kouveliotou, C.; Fishman, G. J.; Meegan, C. A.; Paciesas, W. S.; Bonnel, J. T. (April 1994). "Detection of signature consistent with cosmological time dilation in gamma-ray bursts". Astrophysical Journal 424 (2): 540–545. doi:10.1086/173912. 
  6. ↑ Wilford, John Noble (January 16, 1994). "Gamma-Ray Finding Bolsters Einstein Theory, Report Says". The New York Times. Retrieved 23 January 2014. 
  7. ↑ "Spacetime: A smoother brew than we knew". Retrieved 22 January 2014. 
  8. ↑ Nemiroff, Robert J.; Connolly, Ryan; Holmes, Justin; Kostinski, Alexander B. (June 2012). "Bounds on Spectral Dispersion from Fermi-Detected Gamma Ray Bursts". Physical Review Letters 108 (23). doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.108.231103. 
  9. ↑ Cowen, Ron (10 January 2012). "Cosmic race ends in a tie". Nature. Retrieved 23 January 2014. 
  10. ↑ Nemiroff, Robert J. (June 1986). "Random gravitational lensing". Astrophysics and Space Science 123 (2): 381–387. doi:10.1007/BF00653957. Retrieved 27 January 2014. 
  11. ↑ Nemiroff, Robert J. (12 1987). Prediction and analysis of basic gravitational microlensing phenomena. Retrieved 27 January 2014. 
  12. ↑ Nemiroff, Robert J.; Wickramasinghe, W. A. D. T. (March 1994). "Finite source sizes and the information content of macho-type lens search light curves". Astrophysical Journal Letters 424 (1): L21–L23. doi:10.1086/187265. 
  13. ↑ Nemiroff, Robert J. (November 1994). "Magnification bias in galactic microlensing searches". Astrophysical Journal 435 (2): 682–684. doi:10.1086/174845. 
  14. ↑ Nemiroff, Robert. "Who is this R. J. Nemiroff? Some Favorite Astronomy Ideas". Retrieved 22 January 2014. 
  15. ↑ Patla, Bijunath; Nemiroff, Robert J. (2008). "Gravitational Lensing Characteristics of the Transparent Sun". The Astrophysical Journal 685 (2): 1297. doi:10.1086/588805. 
  16. ↑ Nemiroff, Robert (2000). "The Pulse Scale Conjecture and the Case of BATSE Trigger 2193". The Astrophysical Journal 544 (2): 805. doi:10.1086/317230. 
  17. ↑ Pullen, Lee; Russo, Pedro (June 2010). "Robert Nemiroff: Communicating Astronomy 365 Days a Year". Communicating Astronomy with the Public (8): 22–23. Retrieved 22 January 2014. 
  18. ↑ "From 14 to a Million: The Astronomical Growth of the Astronomy Picture of the Day". Physics Buzz. Retrieved 26 January 2014. 
  19. ↑ "APOD Turns 17". Retrieved 22 January 2014. 
  20. ↑ "About Astronomy Picture of the Day". Retrieved 22 January 2014. 
  21. ↑ Nemiroff, R. J.; Wallin, J. F. (05/1999). "The Astrophysics Source Code Library: http://www.ascl.net/". Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society (in Vol. 31, p.885) (American Astronomical Society) 194: 885. Bibcode:1999AAS...194.4408N. 
  22. ↑ "Astrophysics Source Code Library". Retrieved 21 October 2013. 

External links

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