Chris Van Den Broeck – Curriculum Vitae 1
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Chris Van Den Broeck – Curriculum Vitae 1 Curriculum Vitae PERSONAL INFORMATION Family name, first name: Van Den Broeck, Chris Date of birth: 14 February 1974 Nationality: Belgium Website: http://www.nikhef.nl/~vdbroeck E-mail: [email protected] Phone: +31 (0)20 592 2053 EDUCATION 2000-2005 PhD (theoretical physics) Department of Physics, The Pennsylvania State University, USA Supervisor: Prof. Abhay Ashtekar 1992-1996 MSc (physics) Department of Physics, University of Leuven, Belgium Supervisor: Prof. Walter Troost CURRENT POSITIONS 2019-present Professor of Gravitational Waves Physics, Department of Physics, Utrecht University, Netherlands 2018-present Deputy Programme Leader, Gravitational Physics, Nikhef, Amsterdam, Netherlands PREVIOUS POSITIONS 2017-2019 Professor by Special Appointment, Van Swinderen Institute, University of Groningen, Netherlands 2013-2018 Research Working Group Leader, Gravitational Physics, Nikhef, Amsterdam, Netherlands 2009-2013 Senior Scientist, Gravitational Physics, Nikhef, Amsterdam, Netherlands 2005-2009 Postdoctoral Research Associate, School of Physics and Astronomy, Cardiff University, UK SUPERVISION OF GRADUATE STUDENTS AND POSTDOCTORAL FELLOWS Postdocs • 2019-present: Otto Hannuksela, M.K. Haris • 2018-2020: Tim Dietrich (former Marie Curie Fellow; currently Professor, University of Potsdam) • 2017-present: Anuradha Samajdar • 2016-2019: Archisman Ghosh • 2012-2014: John Veitch (currently Lecturer, University of Glasgow, UK) • 2010-2013: Walter Del Pozzo (currently Associate Professor, Pisa University, Italy) • 2010-2012: Salvatore Vitale (currently Assistant Professor, MIT, USA) PhD students • 2019-present: Pawan Gupta, Anna Puecher • 2018-present: Tsun Ho Pang • 2016-present: Ka Wa Tsang • 2012-2017: Jeroen Meidam (winner of the Jan Kluyver Prize) • 2011-2016: Michalis Agathos (former Rubicon Fellow, University of Cambridge; currently Kavli Research Fellow, University of Cambridge) • 2009- 2013: Tjonnie G.F. Li (cum laude; winner of the Stefano Braccini Prize; former Rubicon Fellow, Caltech; currently Assistant Professor, Chinese University of Hong Kong, China) Chris Van Den Broeck – Curriculum Vitae 2 Master students • 2018-present: Adriaan Hengeveld • 2017-2018: Michiel Rollier, Ankan Sur • 2015-2016: Janna Goldstein (winner of the Volkert van der Willigenbeurs in Astrophysics) • 2012-2013: Marco Tompitak • 2011-2012: Adriaan ter Braack TEACHING ACTIVITIES 2019 Master level course on Gravitational Waves, 5 EC, University of Groningen 2010-2017 Master level course on Gravitational Waves, 3 EC, taught annually at Nikhef for students from VU Amsterdam and University of Amsterdam 2009 Bachelor level course on Dynamics and Relativity, Cardiff University, UK ORGANISATION OF SCIENTIFIC MEETINGS 2018 Organiser, 7th Belgian-Dutch Gravitational Waves Meeting, Groningen, The Netherlands, 29 May, 2018 2016-2017 Organiser, Physics and Astrophysics at the eXtreme (PAX), Amsterdam, The Netherlands, 14-17 August, 2017 2016-2017 Member of the Scientific Organising Committee, Gravitational Wave Physics and Astronomy Workshop, Annecy, France, 30 May - 2 June, 2017 2012-2016 Member of the Scientific Organising Committee, LIGO-Virgo Collaboration Meetings 2010-2011 Member of the Scientific Organising Committee, 9th Edoardo Amaldi Meeting on Gravitational Waves, Cardiff, UK, 10-15 July, 2011 MANAGEMENT TASKS AND OTHER COMMISSIONS OF TRUST 2019-present Member, European Physical Society High Energy Particle Physics Board 2019-present Member, Virgo Steering Committee 2018-present Co-Chair, 3G Science Case Team on Extreme Gravity (under the aegis of the Gravitational Waves International Committee) 2017-present Associate Editor, General Relativity and Gravitation 2016-present Co-Chair, LIGO-Virgo working group on Testing General Relativity 2014-2016 Data Analysis Coordinator, Virgo Collaboration 2014-2016 Co-Chair, LIGO-Virgo Data Analysis Council 2012-2014 Chair, Compact Binary Coalescence Analysis, Virgo Collaboration 2011-2012 Chair, Burst Analysis Review, Virgo Collaboration 2011-2012 Guest Editor, J. Phys. Conf. Ser., Proceedings of the 9th Eduoardo Amaldi Meeting on Gravitational Waves 2010-2011 Member of the Jury, Thesis Prize of the Gravitational Waves International Committee 2010-2018 Co-Chair, Committee for Astroparticle Physics in the Netherlands 2000-present Referee for Phys. Rev. Lett., Phys. Rev. D, Class. Quantum Grav., Gen. Rel. Grav., Int. J. Mod. Phys., J. Phys. Conf. Ser., Living Reviews in Relativity MAJOR COLLABORATIONS Below I list my past and current membership of large collaborations. Also outside these I have worked on projects with numerous colleagues in the USA, Canada, India, and Japan, as well as in Europe. 2018-present Member, Einstein Telescope Collaboration 2018-present Associate Member, LISA Consortium 2009-present Member, Virgo Collaboration 2005-2009 Member, LIGO Scientific Collaboration 2009-2011 Member of the writing team, Einstein Telescope Scientific Design Study 2007-present Member, Einstein Telescope Science Team 2007-2008 Member, LISA Parameter Estimation Taskforce Chris Van Den Broeck – Curriculum Vitae 3 RESEARCH TRACK RECORD My research focusses on probing the strong-field dynamics of spacetime with gravitational waves, in particular from merging compact binaries composed of neutron stars and/or black holes. Highlights from my early career include: • I helped prove that axisymmetric, but otherwise arbitrarily deformed black holes can be characterised by multipole moments defined at the horizon itself, without reference to even a small neighborhood of it (2004). • As a postdoc, I showed that exploiting the full structure of gravitational waveforms from binaries, including higher harmonics, can dramatically improve parameter estimation (2006). • I helped demonstrate that this in turn would allow for studying the dark energy equation of state with space-based interferometers (2007). I also pioneered studies on cosmology with third-generation ground- based observatories such as Einstein Telescope (2010). • I led the first explorations towards including precessing spins in search pipelines for binary black holes (2006-2009). At Nikhef, I initiated several lines of research: • I developed the first data analysis pipelines to test the genuinely strong-field dynamics of general relativity (GR) with coalescing binaries. This prompted the establishment of a dedicated LIGO-Virgo working group in 2012, and tests of GR with the first gravitational wave detection led to one of the most cited LIGO-Virgo papers of 2016. • Observations of gravitational waves from binary neutron star mergers will allow us to determine the elusive neutron star equation of state, which is one of the main open problems in astrophysics. With my group I have been spearheading the development of concrete data analysis methods, having set up the first data analysis pipelines for equation of state measurements in 2013. • My group has been playing a key role in using binary coalescences as “standard sirens” for cosmology with LIGO and Virgo, in particular measuring the Hubble constant with or without electromagnetic counterparts to the gravitational wave signals. • Alternatives to black holes (boson stars, dark matter stars, possibly quantum modifications of black holes) will leave a signature in their gravitational wave emission through tidal effects, resonant excitations, violations of the black hole no-hair theorem, and/or gravitational wave “echoes”. I am among the leaders in the development of data analysis methods to search for such anomalies. SELECTED PUBLICATIONS • B.P. Abbott et al., Tests of general relativity with GW170817, Phys. Rev. Lett. 123, 011102 (2019) • B.P. Abbott et al., GW170817: Measurements of neutron star radii and equation of state, Phys. Rev. Lett. 121, 161101 (2018) • B.P. Abbott et al., GW170817: Observation of gravitational waves from a binary neutron star inspiral, Phys. Rev. Lett. 119, 161101 (2017) • B.P. Abbott et al., Tests of general relativity with GW150914, Phys. Rev. Lett. 116, 221101 (2016) • B.P. Abbott et al., Observation of gravitational waves from a binary black hole merger, Phys. Rev. Lett. 116, 061102 (2016) • M. Agathos, J. Meidam, W. Del Pozzo, T.G.F. Li, M. Tompitak, J. Veitch, S. Vitale, and C. Van Den Broeck, Constraining the neutron star equation of state with gravitational wave signals from coalescing binary neutron stars, Phys. Rev. D 92, 023012 (2015) • M. Agathos, W. Del Pozzo, T.G.F. Li, C. Van Den Broeck, and J. Veitch, TIGER: A data analysis pipeline for testing the strong-field dynamics of general relativity with gravitational wave signals from coalescing compact binaries, Phys. Rev. D 89, 082001 (2014) • W. Del Pozzo, T.G.F. Li, M. Agathos, C. Van Den Broeck, and S. Vitale, Demonstrating the feasibility of probing the neutron star equation of state with second-generation gravitational wave detectors, Phys. Rev. Lett. 111, 071101 (2013) • T.G.F. Li, W. Del Pozzo, S. Vitale, C. Van Den Broeck, M. Agathos, J. Veitch, K. Grover, T. Sidery, R. Sturani, and A. Vecchio, Towards a generic test of the strong field dynamics of general relativity using compact binary coalescence, Phys. Rev. D 85, 082003 (2012) • B.S. Sathyaprakash, B.F. Schutz, and C. Van Den Broeck, Cosmography with the Einstein Telescope, Class. Quantum Grav. 27, 215006 (2010) Chris Van Den Broeck – Curriculum Vitae 4 BOOK CHAPTER C. Van Den Broeck, Probing dynamical spacetimes with gravitational waves, Chapter in Springer Handbook of Spacetime, eds. A. Ashtekar and V. Petkov, Springer