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Ruth Durrer (born 1958) is a professor of Cosmology at the University of Geneva. She works on the cosmic microwave background, brane cosmology and massive gravity.

Early life and education

Durrer was born in Kerns. She earned her high school diploma at Kantonales Lehrerseminar, and studied at the University of Zürich. She completed her PhD on perturbation theory with Norbert Straumann at the University of Zürich in 1988. She was a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Cambridge for a year, before joining Princeton University in 1989. Durrer returned to Zürich in 1991, completing a postdoctoral fellowship.

Research and career

Durrer was made an assistant professor at the University of Zürich in 1992, and full professor at the University of Geneva in 1995. She is a member of the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics. She works on the cosmic microwave background and massive gravity. Massive gravity describes an expanding universe with massive gravitons, which weakens gravity on large scales. Durrer uses cosmological observations as a test for general relativity.

Durrer has contributed extensively to the theoretical understanding of topological defects. She showed that cosmic textures can suppress the acoustic peaks of the angular power spectrum of the cosmic microwave background. This results confirm that cosmic textures are not responsible for the distribution of matter in the observed universe. She worked with Neil Turok to demonstrate it is possible to use terrestrial lab-based experiments to test cosmological phase transitions in the early universe. These include using liquid crystals to study the scaling solutions of string networks. She has also demonstrated that density fluctuations in the early universe can result in the cosmological magnetic fields. She showed that the scaling properties of these primordial magnetic fields can be determined by causality arguments alone.

Durrer studied an extended area of space, separating it into 60 billion zones and using the c++ library LATfield2 with a supercomputer to study the movement of individual particles. She used Einstein's equations to calculate the distance in metric space, comparing this with the prediction of Newton's methods. She has investigated dark energy.

Durrer was elected to Academia Net by the Swiss National Science Foundation in 2012. She is a member of the committee of the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics International Society on General Relative and Gravitation. She has held visiting academic positions at University of California, Berkeley, Princeton University, University of Paris-Sud and Galileo Galilei Institute.

Books

• Durrer, Ruth; García-Bellido, Juan; Shaposhnikov, Mikhail (2001). Cosmology and Particle Physics. Melville, New York: American Institute of Physics. ISBN 1563969866. OCLC 46930644.
• Durrer, Ruth (2008). The Cosmic Microwave Background. Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/CBO9780511817205. ISBN 9780511817205. OCLC 297170401. S2CID 118734246.

Awards and honours

Her awards and honours include;

• 1992 Swiss Academy of Sciences Schaefli Award
• 2024 Prix Jules Janssen awarded by the Société astronomique de France

Personal life

Durrer is married with three children. She speaks German, English, French, and Swiss German.

References

1. ^ "Prof. Ruth Durrer - AcademiaNet". www.academia-net.org. Retrieved 2019-04-28.
2. ^ "Ruth Durrer | Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics - University of Geneva". cosmology.unige.ch. Retrieved 2019-04-28.
3. "Ruth Durrer - The Mathematics Genealogy Project". www.genealogy.ams.org. Retrieved 2019-04-29.
4. ^ "Ruth Durrer". Institute for Advanced Study. Retrieved 2019-04-28.
5. "Ruth's Homepage". fiteoweb.unige.ch. Retrieved 2019-04-28.
6. "Ruth Durrer | Perimeter Institute". perimeterinstitute.ca. Retrieved 2019-04-28.
7. Durrer, Ruth. (2008). The cosmic microwave background. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780511424069. OCLC 297170401.
8. "Ruth Durrer | SwissMAP". www.nccr-swissmap.ch. Retrieved 2019-04-28.
9. "Cosmology and the cosmic microwave background | Cours de physique théorique". courses.ipht.cnrs.fr. Institut de physique théorique - IPhT Saclay. Retrieved 2019-04-28.
10. "Ruth Durrer". www.colloquium.phys.ethz.ch. Retrieved 2019-04-28.
11. "Testing General Relativity with Cosmological observations - Ruth Durrer". Media Hopper Create - The University of Edinburgh Media Platform. Retrieved 2019-04-28.
12. Durrer, Ruth; Gangui, Alejandro; Sakellariadou, Mairi (1996-01-22). "Doppler Peaks in the Angular Power Spectrum of the Cosmic Microwave Background: A Fingerprint of Topological Defects". Physical Review Letters. 76 (4): 579–582. arXiv:astro-ph/9507035. Bibcode:1996PhRvL..76..579D. doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.76.579. PMID 10061495. S2CID 16031907.
13. ^ Yurke, Bernard; Turok, Neil; Durrer, Ruth; Chuang, Isaac (1991-03-15). "Cosmology in the Laboratory: Defect Dynamics in Liquid Crystals". Science. 251 (4999): 1336–1342. Bibcode:1991Sci...251.1336C. doi:10.1126/science.251.4999.1336. ISSN 0036-8075. PMID 17816188. S2CID 33894124.
14. Durrer, Ruth (2006-02-10). "Is the Mystery of Cosmic Magnetic Fields Solved?". Science. 311 (5762): 787–788. doi:10.1126/science.1122395. ISSN 0036-8075. PMID 16469908. S2CID 1522770.
15. "North of the Big Bang". www.newscientist.com. Retrieved 2019-04-28.
16. "Members in the Media". www.aps.org. Retrieved 2019-04-28.
17. Durrer, Ruth; Caprini, Chiara (2003-11-19). "Primordial magnetic fields and causality". Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics. 2003 (11): 010. arXiv:astro-ph/0305059. Bibcode:2003JCAP...11..010D. doi:10.1088/1475-7516/2003/11/010. ISSN 1475-7516. S2CID 53768021.
18. ^ "Spacetime and Gravitational Waves Yield a New View of the Universe". The Daily Galaxy. 2016-03-07. Retrieved 2019-04-28.
19. Durrer Ruth (2011-12-28). "What do we really know about dark energy?". Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences. 369 (1957): 5102–5114. arXiv:1103.5331. Bibcode:2011RSPTA.369.5102D. doi:10.1098/rsta.2011.0285. PMID 22084297.
20. "AC2: Members | IUPAP: The International Union of Pure and Applied Physics". iupap.org. Retrieved 2019-04-29.
21. Reviews of The Cosmic Microwave Background:
    • Slosar, Anže (2009-08-01). "The Cosmic Microwave Background; A Primer on the Physics of the Cosmic Microwave Background". Physics Today. 62 (8): 44. Bibcode:2009PhT....62h..44D. doi:10.1063/1.3206096.
    • Bartelmann, Matthias (2009). "Ruth Durrer: The cosmic microwave background". General Relativity and Gravitation. 41 (7): 1671–1673. doi:10.1007/s10714-009-0791-0. S2CID 117069473.
    • Coles, Peter (2009). "BOOK REVIEW: The Cosmic Microwave Background". Classical and Quantum Gravity. 26 (16): 169002. doi:10.1088/0264-9381/26/16/169002. S2CID 250790765.
    • Matravers, David (2009). "The Cosmic Microwave Background, by R. Durrer, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2008, xii + 401 pp., £40.00 (hardback), ISBN 978 0 521 84704 9. Scope: textbook/reference text. Level: advanced". Contemporary Physics. 50 (5): 604–605. doi:10.1080/00107510902884410.
22. "Prix Jules Janssen". Société astronomique de France.

• University of Zurich alumni
• Academic staff of the University of Zurich
• Academic staff of the University of Geneva
• Swiss women academics
• Swiss cosmologists
• 1958 births
• Living people