Enrique García-Berro
Enrique García-Berro Montilla (1959 - 2017) was a Spanish astrophysicist.[1] He was a world-recognized expert in stellar astrophysics, in particular in the theory of white dwarf stars and type Ia supernovae.
Enrique García-Berro Montilla | |
|---|---|
| Born | March 3, 1959 |
| Died | September 23, 2017 (aged 58) |
Life and Career
García-Berro earned his masters degree in physics from the University of Barcelona in 1982 with highest honors.[2] He went on at Barcelona to pursue his Ph.D. with Jordi Isern. He earned his Ph.D. in theoretical astrophysics in 1987 cum laude.
In 1987, García-Berro was appointed Associate Professor in Applied Physics at the Polytechnic University of Catalonia (UPC). In 2003, he was promoted to full Professor. From 2006 to 2013, he was the Vice-Rector at the UPC. García-Berro proved to be a capable administrator, and was appointed to be the director of the Serra Húnter program, designed to attract world-class faculty to Catalonian universities.[3] García-Berro also served as the assistant director of the Institut d'Estudis Espacials de Catalunya (IEEC) from 2002 to 2005.
García-Berro was married to Isabel, a biologist at the University of Barcelona, and the couple had three children: Aurora, Isabel and Ignacio. García-Berro was an avid athlete and fan of outdoors sports, and was a keen mountain hiker and cyclist.
Research
García-Berro was a highly-productive scientific researcher and made a number of important contributions to the knowledge of stellar evolution, with a particular emphasis on white dwarfs. During a stay at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, he collaborated with the renowned astrophysicist Icko Iben on the theory of stars whose initial masses are between 9 and 11 times the mass of the sun, right at the cusp between stars which ultimately form white dwarfs, and those which undergo gravitational collapse. Together, they published a series of papers which remain standards in the field.[4][5]
Towards the end of his life, García-Berro carried out pioneering three-dimensional simulations of merging white dwarfs with his students and collaborators.[6] These merging white dwarf systems are believed to give rise to a range of interesting stellar systems, from strongly-magnetized white dwarfs, to Type Ia supernovae and R Coronae Borealis variable stars, to gravitational wave sources.
Death
García-Berro passed away during a tragic climbing accident on September 23, 2017 on the Picos del Inferno in the Pyrenees, near Sallent de Gállego, Spain.[7]
References
- ^ "Enrique García-Berro Montilla (1959 - 2017) | American Astronomical Society". aas.org. Retrieved 2018-11-29.
- ^ "Enrique García-Berro CV" (PDF). Retrieved 2018-11-29.
{{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter:|dead-url=(help) - ^ "Objective and organization". Serra Húnter Programme. Retrieved 2018-11-29.
- ^ García-Berro, Enrique; Ritossa, Claudio; Icko Iben, Jr. (1997). "On the Evolution of Stars that Form Electron-Degenerate Cores Processed by Carbon Burning. III. The Inward Propagation of a Carbon-Burning Flame and Other Properties of a 9 M☉ Model Star". The Astrophysical Journal. 485 (2): 765. doi:10.1086/304444. ISSN 0004-637X.
- ^ Ritossa, Claudio; Garcia-Berro, Enrique; Iben, Icko (March 1996). "On the Evolution of Stars That Form Electron-degenerate Cores Processed by Carbon Burning. II. Isotope Abundances and Thermal Pulses in a 10 Msun Model with an ONe Core and Applications to Long-Period Variables, Classical Novae, and Accretion-induced Collapse". The Astrophysical Journal. 460: 489. doi:10.1086/176987. ISSN 0004-637X.
- ^ Lorén-Aguilar, P.; Isern, J.; García-Berro, E. (2009-04-29). "High-resolution smoothed particle hydrodynamics simulations of the merger of binary white dwarfs". Astronomy & Astrophysics. 500 (3): 1193–1205. doi:10.1051/0004-6361/200811060. ISSN 0004-6361.
{{cite journal}}: line feed character in|title=at position 63 (help) - ^ Villanueva, María José. "Fallece un hombre de 58 años en el tercer accidente mortal consecutivo de montañeros que iban solos". heraldo.es. Retrieved 2018-11-29.