Remo Ruffini
Director of Research
Remo Ruffini is an Italian theoretical astrophysicist. He is Director of ICRANet, the International Centre for Relativistic Astrophysics Network, and a co-founder of the International Centre for Relativistic Astrophysics. He served as chair of theoretical physics at the University of Rome “La Sapienza”. He also served as President of the Scientific Committee of the Italian Space Agency, and as a board member of ENEA.
His recognition includes the Cressy Morrison Award of the New York Academy of Sciences, fellowship of the American Physical Society, an Alfred P. Sloan Fellowship, the Space Scientist of the Year Award and others.
He initiated and directs the International Relativistic Astrophysics PhD (IRAP PhD) program. He co-founded the Marcel Grossmann Meetings on relativistic field theories and gravitation and has played a central role in building the international community in relativistic astrophysics.
His scientific work covers black holes, neutron stars, gamma-ray bursts, and relativistic field theory. With Wheeler, they introduced the black hole. With Christodoulou, he derived the mass energy formula for Kerr Newman black holes. With Rhoades, he set the strict upper bound on the neutron star mass, which supported the identification of Cygnus X-1 as a black hole. He introduced the concept of boson stars and proposed that pair creation around charged black holes, in the region he named the dyadosphere. He also contributed to relativistic cosmology, including studies of inhomogeneous matter distributions and large scale structure. His work integrates theoretical analysis, numerical modeling, and interpretation of high energy observations.
He is author or co-author of 21 books with Riccardo Giacconi, Herbert Gursky, James Bardeen, Martin Rees, John Archibald Wheeler, Hiroomi Sato, Fulvio Melchiorri and others. A major contribution is Gravitation and Spacetime, written with Hans Ohanian, which is widely used as textbook.
Contact
Email: ruffini@icra.it
Address: Piazza della Repubblica, 10, Pescara 65122, Italy
