Lars Bildsten

Permanent Member, Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics

Professor, Department of Physics

KITP, Kohn Hall

University of California, Santa Barbara

Santa Barbara, CA 93106

Phone: (805) 893-3979 Fax: (805) 893-2431

Biographical Sketch

Lars Bildsten joined the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics and the Physics Department at University of California, Santa Barbara in July 1999. He received his PhD in theoretical physics from Cornell University in 1991, where he held a Fannie and John Hertz Graduate Fellowship . Bildsten was then at Caltech for three years as the Lee A. DuBridge Research Fellow in Theoretical Astrophysics and received a Compton Fellowship from NASA in spring 1994. He was an assistant and associate professor in both the Physics and Astronomy departments at University of California, Berkeley from January 1995 through July 1999. While there, he was awarded an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Fellowship in 1995 and a Hellman Family Faculty Fund Award in 1997. The Research Corporation designated him as a Cottrell Scholar in 1998. In 1999, he was awarded the Helen B. Warner Prize from the American Astronomical Society. Bildsten was cited for his fundamental work on stellar structure, including nuclear burning on neutron stars, the role of neutron stars as gravity wave sources, and the theory of lithium depletion. He was the 2000 Edwin Salpeter Lecturer at Cornell University and the 2004 Biermann Lecturer at the Max-Planck Institute for Astrophysics, and is presently a Foreign Associate of the Cosmology and Gravity Program of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research.

National Service

During the previous Decadal Survey of Astronomy and Astrophysics , Bildsten served on two Panels: High Energy Astrophysics from Space and Theory, Computation and Data Exploration. He was an elected member of the Executive Committee of the High Energy Astrophysics Division of the American Astronomical Society in 2000 and 2001 and the Executive Committee of the Division of Astrophysics of the American Physical Society from 2003-2005. He has served on many recent NRC panels, including Committee on Astronomy and Astrophysics from 2001 to 2005 and the Panel to Review the Science Requirements for the Terrestrial Planet Finder and Committee on Review of Progress in Astronomy and Astrophysics toward the Decadal Vision in 2005. He was a member of the NSF's Mathematical and Physical Science Advisory Committee from 2004 until 2007. In 2008, he began his service on the Astro2010: The Astronomy and Astrophysics Decadal Survey committee.

Research Interests

I primarily work in the field of stellar astrophysics, where my current efforts are focused on the physics of white dwarfs and their explosions as Type Ia supernovae. This includes the theoretical study of many different physical phenomena, including thermonuclear instabilities, propagating combustion fronts, detonations and stellar oscillations. I have considered the prospects for detection of coalescing neutron star/neutron star binaries at cosmological distances and accreting neutron stars in our Galaxy with the Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory

Almost all of my current research is involved in understanding the many ways in which stars die and how they manifest themselves to observers. What kinds of compact remnants they leave behind (white dwarfs, neutron stars or black holes) is also of paramount importance.Over the last five years, my research has spread into the studies of accreting white dwarfs and how they respond to surface and interior thermonuclear ignitions, sometimes resulting in Type Ia supernovae. I am also avidly interested in optical transients, some of which will soon be followed up by the Santa Barbara based Las Cumbres Observatory Global Telescope Network

Papers (search on ADS)

Current Graduate Students working with me

Former Graduate Students . . . where are they now?

Former Postdocs

Current Collaborators

Lecture Notes and Talks

Teaching and UCSB Information

Family

Local Endeavors Supporting Education