Vahagn "Vahe" Gurzadyan (
Armenian: Վահագն Գուրզադյան; born 21 November 1955) is an Armenian
mathematical physicist and a professor and head of Cosmology Center at
Yerevan Physics Institute, Yerevan , Armenia, best known for co-writing "
Concentric circles in
WMAP data may provide evidence of violent pre-Big-Bang activity"[1]
paper with his colleague,
Roger Penrose, and collaborating on Roger Penrose's recent book Cycles of Time.
Gurzadyan was born in
Yerevan, Armenia (then
Soviet Union), graduated from
Yerevan State University (1977), was a postgraduate student in the theoretical physics department of the
Lebedev Physics Institute at Moscow (1977–1980; 1980 PhD.), DSci in theoretical and mathematical physics (1988).
In 1989 he lectured on dynamical systems in four universities in Japan (Tokyo, Kyoto, Hiroshima, Fukui), and subsequently held visiting positions at the University of Sussex (1996–1997) and, since 2001, at
Sapienza University of Rome. His father
Grigor Gurzadyan, an Armenian
astronomer pioneered space-based astronomy using satellites. His grandfather
Ashkharbek Kalantar was a Russian Empire and Armenian archaeologist and historian, Fellow of Russian Imperial Archaeological Society and the keeper of the
Asiatic Museum in
St. Petersburg.[2]
Main research
The main topics of his research: chaos in non-linear systems, accretion onto massive black holes, stellar dynamics, observational cosmology.
Gurzadyan has papers predicting elliptical accretion disks formed in galactic nuclei at tidal disruption of stars near massive black holes;[3] the tidal mechanism currently is associated to the flares observed in AGN.[4]
He has shown (with Savvidy;
Gurzadyan-Savvidy relaxation) the exponential instability (chaos) in spherical stellar systems and has derived the collective relaxation time.[5][6][7] He has formulated a list of 10 key problems in stellar dynamics[8][9][10] He has proved a theorem (
Gurzadyan theorem) on the most general functional form for the force satisfying the condition of identity of the gravity of the sphere and of a point mass located in the sphere's center. [11]
Cosmic microwave background indications for cosmic voids were obtained by Gurzadyan et al., including on the void nature of the
Cold Spot,[12][13] confirmed by independent galaxy survey,[14] as of possibly largest known structure in the Universe.
Gurzadyan has suggested and initiated the use of Compton Edge method for high accuracy testing of the light speed isotropy and the
Lorentz invariance at GRAAL experiment in
European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (Grenoble); the obtained limit became a reference number for Special Relativity extension models.[15][16][17]
Other topics
Gurzadyan has invented[18] the concept of
information panspermia which Webb[19] attributed as Solution 23 of
Fermi Paradox. That concept includes the hypothesis that the Universe can be full of traveling extraterrestrial life streams as low-complexity compressed bit strings at
von Neumann automata network. He has shown that human genome and hence the terrestrial life possess low
Kolmogorov complexity and hence the corresponding bit strings can be transmitted by
Arecibo-type antenna to Galactic distances.
He led a study with geneticists in
Duke University introducing a new method to detect somatic mutations in genomic sequences,[21] in proposing bath-quantum system viewpoint on the relation of thermodynamic and cosmological arrows of time.[22]
Revealing the chronology of ancient world with astronomical dating
He identified the
Halley's comet depicted on ancient coins of Armenian king
Tigranes the Great, I c. BC. as the earliest known image of that comet[25] He revealed the observation of supernova
SN 1054 (progenitor of
Crab nebula) in Armenian medieval chronicle of Hetum (
Hayton of Corycus) and Cronaca Rampona.[26]
Activities
Member of
Euroscience Governing Board (elected in 1998, reelected in 2002). Chair of organizing committees of workshops such as "Ergodic Concepts in Stellar Dynamics", Geneva, 1993; "The Chaotic Universe", Rome, 1999; "Fermi and Astrophysics", Rome-Pescara, 2001; IX Marcel Grossmann meeting, Rome 2000, chair of 'Chaos' Parallel sessions at Marcel Grossmann Meetings, Jerusalem, 1997, Rome, 2000, Rio de Janeiro, 2003, Berlin, 2006. Paris, 2009. Co-editor of
International Journal of Modern Physics D (World Scientific, 2000-2010), of
The European Physical Journal Plus(Springer) and of book series 'Advances in Astronomy and Astrophysics' (Taylor & Francis, UK). Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society (UK).
Speaker at XXII
Solvay conference on physics, keynote speaker at IXth Swiss Biennial on Science, Technics + Aesthetics on "The Large, The Small and the Human Mind", lecturer at Xth Brazilian School of Cosmology and Gravitation.
^Vesperini, E (1992). "Possible observational indication for Gurzadyan-Savvidy relaxation for globular clusters". Astron. Astrophys. 266 (1): 215.
Bibcode:
1992A&A...266..215V.
^Gurzadyan, V. G (1994). "10 key problems in stellar dynamics: In retrospect". In V.G. Gurzadyan; D. Pfenniger (eds.). Ergodic Concepts in Stellar Dynamics. Lecture Notes in Physics. Vol. 430. Springer. pp. 281–291.
arXiv:1407.0398.
Bibcode:
2014arXiv1407.0398G.
^Szapudi, I.; et al. (2015). "Detection of a supervoid aligned with the cold spot of the cosmic microwave background". Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. 450 (1): 288–294.
arXiv:1405.1566.
Bibcode:
2015MNRAS.450..288S.
doi:
10.1093/mnras/stv488.
^Gasche, H., Armstrong, J.A., Cole, S.W. and Gurzadyan, V.G., Dating the fall of Babylon: A Reappraisal of Second-millennium Chronology, University of Ghent and the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago,1998.
^Gurzadyan V.G., "
On the Astronomical Records and Babylonian Chronology", Akkadica, v.119-120, p.175 (2000); Gurzadyan V.G.,
[1] "The Venus Tablet and refraction.", Akkadica v.124, p.13 (2003); Gurzadyan V.G.,
[2] Astronomy and the Fall of Babylon, Sky & Telescope, v.100, No.1 (July), p.40 (2000); Gurzadyan V.G., Warburton D.A.,
[3] On the Available Lunar and Solar Eclipses and Babylonian Chronology, Akkadica, v.126, p.195 (2005).
^Gurzadyan, V.G. (2012). "The supernova of 1054 AD, the Armenian chronicle of Hetum, and Cronaca Rampona". Observatory. 132 (5): 338–339.
arXiv:1207.3865.
Bibcode:
2012Obs...132..338G.