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Frank Eisenhauer

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Frank Eisenhauer

Frank Eisenhauer (born 9 June 1968 in Augsburg) is a German astronomer and astrophysicist, a director of the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics (MPE),[1] and a professor at Technical University of Munich. He is best known for his contributions to interferometry and spectroscopy and the study of the black hole at the centre of the Milky Way.

Life

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Eisenhauer grew up in Augsburg. In 1987, he graduated from the Justus-von-Liebig Gymnasium in Neusäß and then did his military service with the Mountain Signal Battalion 8 in Murnau. Eisenhauer is married with three children and lives in Munich.

Studies

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Eisenhauer studied physics at the Technical University of Munich (1988–1995) and has been working at the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics (MPE) since his diploma thesis in 1995. There, he wrote his doctoral thesis under Reinhard Genzel and received his doctorate from the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich in 1998. In 2011, Eisenhauer habilitated at the Technical University of Munich.

Teaching

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Eisenhauer is adjunct professor at the Technical University of Munich, where he teaches astrophysics and high-resolution astronomy.[2]

Science and research

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As a director of the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics (MPE), Eisenhauer leads the development and scientific evaluation of large astronomical instruments. Eisenhauer has been instrumental in the development of astronomy with the highest spatial resolution and imaging spectroscopy, contributing in particular to the discovery and study of the black hole at the centre of the Milky Way.[3]

Already in his doctoral thesis, Eisenhauer worked on infrared astronomy and developed an infrared camera with Fabry-Pérot spectrometer for the adaptive optics at the 3.6m telescope of the European Southern Observatory (ESO) in La Silla (Chile). Subsequently, as Principal Investigator, he led the development of the SPIFFI/SINFONI spectrometer at the ESO Very Large Telescope in Paranal (Chile), which, with a then unique combination of adaptive optics and imaging spectroscopy,[4] not only corrects for the interference caused by the Earth's atmosphere, but also simultaneously records a spectrum for each pixel in the image. In 2003, this enabled Eisenhauer and colleagues to measure the distance to the centre of the Milky Way from the orbit of the star S2 for the first time using geometric methods,[5] and by measuring the radial velocities of several stars, they were able to confirm the assumption that a supermassive black hole is located there.[6]

Since 2005, Eisenhauer has been principal investigator of the GRAVITY experiment,[7] which connects the European Southern Observatory's four Very Large Telescopes in Paranal, Chile, together as stellar interferometers, achieving an angular resolution equivalent to that of a 130-metre diameter telescope. Similar to adaptive optics, GRAVITY actively corrects for the interfering influences of the Earth's atmosphere and disturbances in the light path between the telescope and the laboratory, improving sensitivity by several orders of magnitude compared to previous experiments. In 2018, this enabled Eisenhauer and colleagues to detect, in particular, the redshift in the gravitational field of a black hole predicted from Albert Einstein's theory of general relativity.[8] The same team also succeeded in 2020 in detecting the Schwarzschild precession (orbit comparison Newton and Einstein) in the orbit of the star S2.[9] The geometric measurement of the distance to the Galactic centre and the detection of the gravitational redshift in the black hole's gravitational field were confirmed by Andrea Ghez and colleagues with observations at the Keck Observatory on Hawaii.[10][11][12]

The SINFONI and GRAVITY instruments are part of the instrument suite employed in the discovery and characterization of the Galactic Center Black Hole, for which Reinhard Genzel and Andrea Ghez have been awarded the 2020 Nobel Prize in Physics.[13]

Other areas of research to which Eisenhauer's observations have contributed include galaxy dynamics in the early universe,[14] active galactic nuclei, and star formation in massive star clusters.[15]

Awards and honours

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Memberships

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References

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  1. ^ url=https://www.mpe.mpg.de/7948075/news20230515
  2. ^ "Visitenkarte von Eisenhauer, Frank; Apl. Prof. Dr. Rer. Nat. Habil. - TUMonline - Technische Universität München".
  3. ^ http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2010RvMP...82.3121G Genzel, R., Eisenhauer, F., & Gillessen, S. 2010: "The Galactic Center massive black hole and nuclear star cluster", Reviews of Modern Physics, 82, 3121–3195
  4. ^ http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2015ARA%26A..53..155E Eisenhauer, F., & Raab, W. 2015: "Visible/Infrared Imaging Spectroscopy and Energy-Resolving Detectors", Annual Review of Astronomy and Astrophysics, 53, 155–197
  5. ^ http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2003ApJ...597L.121E Eisenhauer, F., et al. 2003: "A Geometric Determination of the Distance to the Galactic Center", The Astrophysical Journal, 597, L121
  6. ^ http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2005ApJ...628..246E Eisenhauer, F., et al. 2005: "SINFONI in the Galactic Center: Young Stars and Infrared Flares in the Central Light-Month", The Astrophysical Journal, 628, 246
  7. ^ http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2017A%26A...602A..94G Gravity Collaboration, et al. 2017: "First light for GRAVITY: Phase referencing optical interferometry for the Very Large Telescope Interferometer", Astronomy and Astrophysics, 602, A94
  8. ^ http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2018A%26A...615L..15G Gravity Collaboration, et al. 2018: "Detection of the gravitational redshift in the orbit of the star S2 near the Galactic centre massive black hole", Astronomy and Astrophysics, 615, L15
  9. ^ https://www.aanda.org/articles/aa/full_html/2020/04/aa37813-20/aa37813-20.html GRAVITY Collaboration, et al. 2020: "Detection of the Schwarzschild precession in the orbit of the star S2 near the Galactic centre massive black hole", Astronomy and Astrophysics, 636, L5
  10. ^ http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2005ApJ...620..744G Ghez, A., et al. 2005: "Stellar Orbits Around the Galactic Center Black Hole", Astrophysical Journal, 620, 744
  11. ^ http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2019Sci...365..664D Do, T., et al. 2019: "Relativistic redshift of the star S0-2 orbiting the Galactic Center supermassive black hole", Science, 365
  12. ^ Reinhard Genzel erhält den Physik-Nobelpreis. Retrieved 17 February 2021.
  13. ^ "The Nobel Prize in Physics 2020".
  14. ^ The rapid formation of a large rotating disk galaxy three billion years after the Big Bang Genzel, R., Tacconi, L. J., Eisenhauer, F., et al. 2006: "The rapid formation of a large rotating disk galaxy three billion years after the Big Bang", Nature, 442, 786
  15. ^ http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2018Natur.563..657G Gravity Collaboration, et al. 2018: "Spatially resolved rotation of the broad-line region of a quasar at sub-parsec scale", Nature, 563, 657
  16. ^ Gruber Prize in Cosmology 2022
  17. ^ "Preisträgerinnen und Preisträger".
  18. ^ https://ras.ac.uk/sites/default/files/RAS%20Jackson%20Gwilt%20Medal%20-%20Dr%20Frank%20Eisenhauer%20(1).pdf [bare URL PDF]
  19. ^ https://eas.unige.ch/documents/eas_prizes_2021.pdf [bare URL PDF]
  20. ^ "Frank Eisenhauer receives 2020 Michelson Investigator Achievement Award".
  21. ^ "Outstanding Research Awarded by the German Astronomical Society".
  22. ^ url=https://www.mpe.mpg.de/7948075/news20230515
  23. ^ "Séance solennelle de réception des associés étrangers élus en 2021".
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