Professor George Efstathiou, an Emeritus Professor of Astrophysics at Cambridge's Institute of Astronomy, has been awarded the Shaw Prize in Astronomy. He shares this honor with Professor John Richard Bond from the Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics and the University of Toronto.
The two researchers were recognized for their pioneering work in cosmology, specifically their studies on fluctuations in the cosmic microwave background. Their predictions have been confirmed by various instruments, providing precise determinations regarding the universe's age, geometry, and mass-energy content.
Cosmology has experienced significant advancements over the past twenty years due to increasingly accurate measurements of fluctuations in the cosmic microwave background's temperature and polarization fields. This background is a relic from the early universe. Notable contributions came from NASA’s Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe spacecraft and the European Space Agency’s Planck spacecraft.
These fluctuations offer insights into many aspects of fundamental physics, including dark matter and dark energy. They also provide highly accurate measurements of fundamental cosmological parameters that were unimaginable a few decades ago.
While many contributed to developing theories about the cosmic microwave background, Bond and Efstathiou highlighted its importance as a cosmological probe. They made precise predictions based on specific models regarding the universe's history and composition.
Modern numerical codes used to interpret experimental results are primarily based on Bond and Efstathiou's physics. Their work is a rare case where theoretical predictions were later confirmed by experiments.
Their theoretical models suggest that the observable universe is nearly flat spatially. They determine the universe's age with 0.15% precision and its expansion rate with 0.5% precision. Additionally, they estimate dark energy's contribution to critical density with better than 1% accuracy.
Both researchers collaborated closely with experimentalists to test their predictions through sophisticated analyses of cosmic microwave background data from numerous experiments.
George Efstathiou earned his BA in Physics from Oxford University and his PhD in Astronomy from Durham University. His career includes postdoctoral fellowships at Berkeley and Cambridge, serving as Savilian Professor of Astrophysics at Oxford until 1994 before returning to Cambridge in 1997 as Professor of Astrophysics. He has received several honors, including the Royal Astronomical Society Gold Medal in 2022.
Originally published on the Shaw Prize website.