Marica Branchesi
Italian astrophysicist
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Marica Branchesi (Urbino, March 7, 1977) is an Italian astrophysicist. Her leadership and scientific work was pivotal for Virgo/LIGO's discovery of gravitational waves.[1] She is vice president of International Astronomical Union Gravitational Wave Astrophysics Commission and member of the Gravitational Wave International Committee.[2]
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Marica Branchesi | |
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| Born | 7 March 1977  |
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Education
Branchesi completed her undergraduate degree in astronomy in 2002, and obtained a Ph.D. from the University of Bologna in 2006, with a focus in radio astronomy, black holes and clusters of galaxies.[3] She then moved to the California Institute of Technology, where she met her husband, Jan Harms, German physicist and gravitational waves expert.[4]
Research
After being awarded a grant by Italian Minister of Education in 2009, she decided to move back to Italy, where she built her own research staff at the University of Urbino.[5] She is now an assistant professor at the Gran Sasso Science Institute,[6] where she works as co-liaison to coordinate between LIGO's and Virgo's follow up of sending gravitational-wave alerts in low-latency. At LIGO/Virgo, she also studied gravitational waves physics and electromagnetic signals associated with gravitational signal sources.[7]
Notably, she was named one of Nature's "Ten people who mattered this year" for her work as liaison between LIGO and Virgo in the gravitational wave collaboration. She served as a link between the physicists and astronomers, and encouraged both groups to take tentative detections more seriously and coordinated telescopes to follow up on events as soon as they were discovered.[8]
Her current interests lie in understanding the nature of black holes and neutron stars, namely what governs their emission, formation and evolution. With her research, she aims to develop multi-messenger astronomy that uses electromagnetic and gravitational waves to probe the most energetic phenomena in the universe.[9]
Awards
- 2016 - Breakthrough Prize[10] to Ligo/Virgo project for detection of gravitational waves 100 years after Albert Einstein predicted their existence.[11]
- 2017 - "Ten people who mattered this year" of Nature.[8]
- 2018 - "TIME 100 most influential people"[12]
Works
- Branchesi, Marica; Collaboration, Ligo Scientific; Collaboration, Virgo (2012). "Electromagnetic follow-up of gravitational wave transient signal candidates". Journal of Physics: Conference Series. 375 (6) 062004. arXiv:1202.4421. Bibcode:2012JPhCS.375f2004B. doi:10.1088/1742-6596/375/1/062004. ISSN 1742-6596. S2CID 119114529.
- Ziosi, Brunetto Marco; Mapelli, Michela; Branchesi, Marica; Tormen, Giuseppe (2014-07-11). "Dynamics of stellar black holes in young star clusters with different metallicities – II. Black hole–black hole binaries". Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. 441 (4): 3703–3717. arXiv:1404.7147. Bibcode:2014MNRAS.441.3703Z. doi:10.1093/mnras/stu824. ISSN 0035-8711.
- Patricelli, B.; Razzano, M.; Cella, G.; Fidecaro, F.; Pian, E.; Branchesi, M.; Stamerra, A. (2016). "Prospects for joint observations of gravitational waves and gamma rays from merging neutron star binaries". Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics. 2016 (11): 056. arXiv:1606.06124. Bibcode:2016JCAP...11..056P. doi:10.1088/1475-7516/2016/11/056. ISSN 1475-7516. S2CID 119205530.
- Abbott, B. P.; Abbott, R.; Abbott, T. D.; Abernathy, M. R.; Acernese, F.; Ackley, K.; Adams, C.; Adams, T.; Addesso, P. (2016-02-11). "Observation of Gravitational Waves from a Binary Black Hole Merger". Physical Review Letters. 116 (6) 061102. arXiv:1602.03837. Bibcode:2016PhRvL.116f1102A. doi:10.1103/physrevlett.116.061102. ISSN 0031-9007. PMID 26918975. S2CID 119286014.
- Branchesi, Marica (2016). "Multi-messenger astronomy: gravitational waves, neutrinos, photons, and cosmic rays". Journal of Physics: Conference Series. 718 (2) 022004. Bibcode:2016JPhCS.718b2004B. doi:10.1088/1742-6596/718/2/022004. ISSN 1742-6596.