Physicists Alessandra Buonanno, Thibault Damour and Frans Pretorius, pioneers of gravitational astronomy for their theoretical studies on the rendezvous of two black holes, were awarded the Galileo Galilei 2021 Medal, a prize awarded every two years by the National Institute of Physics Nuclear (INFN) with the Galileo Galilei Institute (GGI) to researchers who have made an exceptional contribution to the progress of research in theoretical physics.
The prize, announced on the anniversary of Galileo's birth, is awarded to Buonanno, Damour and Pretorius "for the fundamental understanding of gravitational radiation sources through analytical and numerical techniques which, in a complementary way, have led to theoretical predictions that have been confirmed by observations of gravitational waves and which are now key tools in this new branch of astronomy ”.
"Professors Buonanno and Damour, and Pretorius proposed two complementary approaches, one analytical and one numerical, to describe the behavior of two black holes that spiral around each other until they collide", explains Stefania De Curtis, director of the GGI.
“Their description was used for the analysis of experimental data which, in 2015, led the scientific collaborations LIGO and VIRGO to the observation of the first gravitational waves emitted by the collision of two black holes.
The theoretical studies of Buonanno, Damour and Pretorius were therefore fundamental for the birth of a new era, that of gravitational astronomy, and I am sure that they will give further prestige to the Galileo Galilei Medal ”.
Alessandra Buonanno is the director of the Department of 'Astrophysical and Cosmological Relativity' of the Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics in Potsdam, Germany.
Thibault Damour is full professor at the Institute of Higher Scientific Studies in Paris.
Frans Pretorius is a professor of physics at Princeton University and director of the Princeton Gravity Initiative.