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Jeremiah P. Ostriker

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Jerry Ostriker
Born
Jeremiah Paul Ostriker

(1937-04-13) April 13, 1937 (age 87)
New York City, U.S.
Alma mater
Known for
Spouse
​
(m. 1959)​
Children3
Awards
Scientific career
Institutions
Doctoral advisorSubrahmanyan Chandrasekhar[2]
Doctoral studentsEdmund Bertschinger
Ue-Li Pen
Scott Tremaine
Ellen Zweibel
Websitewww.astro.princeton.edu/people/webpages/jpo/

Jeremiah Paul "Jerry" Ostriker (/ˌoʊˈstraɪkər/ oh-STRY-kər;[3] born April 13, 1937) is an American astrophysicist and a professor of astronomy at Columbia University[4][5] and is the Charles A. Young Professor Emeritus at Princeton, where he also continues as a senior research scholar.[6] Ostriker has also served as a university administrator as Provost of Princeton University. He is known for his significant contributions to the fields of theoretical astrophysics, galaxy formation and evolution, black holes, cosmology, dark matter, and dark energy.

Education[edit]

The son of a teacher and a businessman, Ostriker was born and raised in Manhattan, New York City. He attended the Fieldston School.[7]

Ostriker earned his A.B. in Physics and Chemistry from Harvard University in 1959. He then pursued his graduate studies, earning his Ph.D. in Astrophysics from the University of Chicago in 1964. Later, he was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Science degree from the University of Chicago in 1992 and another from Princeton University in 2017. Additionally, he obtained a Master of Arts degree from the University of Cambridge in England in 2002.[7]

Career and research[edit]

After earning his Ph.D. at Chicago, he conducted post-doctoral work at the University of Cambridge. From 1971 to 1995, Ostriker was a professor at Princeton, and served as Provost there from 1995 to 2001. After stepping down as provost, Ostriker spent three years as the Plumian Professor of Astronomy and Experimental Philosophy at the University of Cambridge. He then returned to Princeton full time in 2005 and served as director of the Princeton Institute for Computational Science and Engineering (PICSiE). Since 2008, he has held the position of treasurer of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences. Following Lyman Spitzer's retirement, Ostriker was appointed the Charles A. Young Chair on the Class of 1890 Foundation.[8] He continues as a senior research scholar at Princeton and became a professor of astronomy at Columbia in 2012.[9]

Ostriker has been very influential in advancing the theory that most of the mass in the universe is not visible at all, but consists of dark matter.[10] His research has also focused on the interstellar medium, galaxy evolution, cosmology and black holes. On June 20, 2013 Ostriker was given the White House Champions of Change Award for his role in initiating the Sloan Digital Sky Survey project, which makes all of its astronomical data sets available publicly on the Internet [11] Ostriker played a pivotal role in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), advocating for open public access to its data.[12]

Ostriker is also known for the Ostriker–Peebles criterion, relating to the stability of galactic formation.

Research[edit]

Before the early 1970s, astronomers generally assumed that the mass in galaxies was primarily composed of visible stars. Ostriker challenged this assumption by proposing a radical model (first proposed by Fritz Zwicky many years earlier) in which galaxies are surrounded by a much larger halo of dark matter, expanding the scale and mass of galaxies. This theory, despite initial skepticism, has been confirmed by observations, marking a major revision in the understanding of galaxies since Shapley's work in the early 1900s.[13]

His research also delved into the dynamics of the gaseous interstellar medium, revealing its interactions akin to those between living organisms and their environment. By analyzing these interactions, Ostriker demonstrated how energy inputs from stellar processes shape the interstellar medium, influencing star formation rates and the evolution of galaxies. His work extended to the intergalactic medium, shedding light on phenomena such as intergalactic gas clouds and their role in galaxy formation.[14]

Ostriker contributed to the development of numerical simulations of the early universe's evolution and structure formation. His collaboration with Paul Bode on N-body simulations helped establish the Lambda cold dark matter model as the standard cosmological model. Additionally, his work with Ren-Yue Cen addressed the formation of galaxies and the Missing baryon problem, revealing the distribution of ordinary chemical elements in intergalactic gas.[15]

Ostriker played a role in developing algorithms for large-scale simulations, including the Tree Particle Mesh ("TPM") algorithm used in the Millennium Simulation. Throughout his career, Ostriker has supervised and collaborated with numerous researchers and graduate students, resulting in over 500 scientific publications.[16]

Publications[edit]

As of June 2024, Ostriker's articles have been cited over 112057 times and he has an h-index of 144 (130 papers with at least 130 citations) according to Google Scholar including:

  • Bridle, Sarah L.; Lahav, Ofer; Ostriker, Jeremiah P.; Steinhardt, Paul J. (7 March 2003). "Precision Cosmology? Not Just Yet . . ". Science. 299 (5612): 1532–1533. doi:10.1126/science.1082158.[17]
  • McKee, C. F.; Ostriker, J. P. (November 1977). "A theory of the interstellar medium - Three components regulated by supernova explosions in an inhomogeneous substrate". The Astrophysical Journal. 218: 148. doi:10.1086/155667.
  • Bahcall, Neta A.; Ostriker, Jeremiah P.; Perlmutter, Saul; Steinhardt, Paul J. (28 May 1999). "The Cosmic Triangle: Revealing the State of the Universe". Science. 284 (5419): 1481–1488. doi:10.1126/science.284.5419.1481.
  • Purcell, Edward M.; Pennypacker, Carlton R. (December 1973). "Scattering and Absorption of Light by Nonspherical Dielectric Grains". The Astrophysical Journal. 186: 705. doi:10.1086/152538.
  • Hui, Lam; Ostriker, Jeremiah P.; Tremaine, Scott; Witten, Edward (28 February 2017). "Ultralight scalars as cosmological dark matter". Physical Review D. 95 (4). doi:10.1103/PhysRevD.95.043541.
  • Rees, M. J.; Ostriker, J. P. (1 August 1977). "Cooling, dynamics and fragmentation of massive gas clouds: clues to the masses and radii of galaxies and clusters". Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. 179 (4): 541–559. doi:10.1093/mnras/179.4.541.
  • Marley, Mark S.; Gelino, Christopher; Stephens, Denise; Lunine, Jonathan I.; Freedman, Richard (10 March 1999). "Reflected Spectra and Albedos of Extrasolar Giant Planets. I. Clear and Cloudy Atmospheres". The Astrophysical Journal. 513 (2): 879–893. doi:10.1086/306881.
  • Walker, R. C.; Benson, J. M.; Unwin, S. C.; Lystrup, M. B.; Hunter, T. R.; Pilbratt, G.; Hardee, P. E. (August 2001). "The Structure and Motions of the 3C 120 Radio Jet on Scales of 0.6–300 Parsecs". The Astrophysical Journal. 556 (2): 756–772. doi:10.1086/321548.

Books[edit]

  1. Heart of Darkness: Unraveling the Mysteries of the Invisible Universe by Jeremiah P. Ostriker and Simon Mitton
  2. Unsolved Problems in Astrophysics by John Bahcall and Jeremiah P. Ostriker
  3. Dreams, Stars, and Electrons by Lyman S. Spitzer Jr. and Jeremiah P. Ostriker
  4. Selected Works of Yakov Borisovich Zeldovich, Volume II: Particles, Nuclei, and the Universe by Yakov Borisovich Zeldovich and Jeremiah P. Ostriker
  5. Formation of Structure in the Universe by Avishai Dekel and Jeremiah P. Ostriker
  6. Development of Large Scale Structure in the Universe by Jeremiah P. Ostriker

Awards and honors[edit]

Ostriker has won numerous awards and honors including:

Personal life[edit]

Ostriker married noted poet and essayist Alicia Ostriker (née Suskin) in 1959. Together they have three adult children: Rebecca, Eve, and Gabriel.[8] Like her father, Eve became an astrophysics professor at Princeton University, in 2012, the same year as her father's retirement.[24] Jeremiah and Alicia Ostriker have been residents of Princeton, New Jersey.[25]

References[edit]

  1. ^ a b "Professor Jeremiah Ostriker ForMemRS". London: Royal Society. Archived from the original on 2015-11-17.
  2. ^ Jeremiah P. Ostriker at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
  3. ^ "Jerry Ostriker". YouTube. October 4, 2021. Retrieved 21 July 2023.
  4. ^ Who's who in Frontiers of Science and Technology
  5. ^ Powell, C.S. (1994). "Profile: Jeremiah and Alicia Ostriker – A Marriage of Science and Art". Scientific American. 271 (3): 28–31. doi:10.1038/scientificamerican0994-28.
  6. ^ "Jeremiah P. Ostriker Biography".
  7. ^ a b "Jeremiah P. Ostriker | News | The Harvard Crimson". The Harvard Crimson.
  8. ^ a b Jeremiah P. Ostriker biography
  9. ^ "The Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics | Alumni: Jeremiah P. Ostriker, 1964". University of Chicago.
  10. ^ de Swart, J. G.; Bertone, G.; van Dongen, J. (2017). "How dark matter came to matter". Nature Astronomy. 1 (59): 0059. arXiv:1703.00013. Bibcode:2017NatAs...1E..59D. doi:10.1038/s41550-017-0059. S2CID 119092226.
  11. ^ "FACULTY HONOR: Ostriker named White House Champion of Change". Princeton University. June 19, 2013. Retrieved June 21, 2013.
  12. ^ "Jeremiah P. ostriker". White House.
  13. ^ "Physical cosmology wins a share of the Nobel Prize in Physics". American Institute of Physics.
  14. ^ "Jeremiah Paul Ostriker". Sonoma State University. 23 June 2021.
  15. ^ "Hubble 3D earns awards at Giant Screen Cinema Association". The Grainger College of Engineering.
  16. ^ Bode, Paul; Ostriker, Jeremiah P. (March 2003). "Tree-Particle-Mesh: an adaptive, efficient, and parallel code for collisionless cosmological simulation". The Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series. pp. 1–13. doi:10.1086/345538.
  17. ^ Bridle, Sarah L.; Lahav, Ofer; Ostriker, Jeremiah P.; Steinhardt, Paul J. (2003). "Precision Cosmology? Not Just Yet". Science. 299 (5612): 1532–1533. arXiv:astro-ph/0303180. Bibcode:2003Sci...299.1532B. doi:10.1126/science.1082158. PMID 12624255. S2CID 119368762.
  18. ^ "Jeremiah P. Ostriker".
  19. ^ "Jeremiah Paul Ostriker". 13 September 2023.
  20. ^ "APS Member History".
  21. ^ "J.P. Ostriker". Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences. Archived from the original on 13 February 2016. Retrieved 13 February 2016.
  22. ^ "Golden Plate Awardees of the American Academy of Achievement". www.achievement.org. American Academy of Achievement.
  23. ^ "AAS Fellows". AAS. Retrieved 30 September 2020.
  24. ^ Ostriker, Jeremiah P. (September 2016). "A fortunate half-century". Annual Review of Astronomy and Astrophysics. 54 (1). Annual Reviews: 1–17. Bibcode:2016ARA&A..54....1O. doi:10.1146/annurev-astro-081915-023259.
  25. ^ "Poet Alicia Ostriker to read in Highland Park", Courier News, September 20, 2014. Accessed January 26, 2020. "She still lives in Princeton with her husband of 56 years, astrophysicist Jeremiah Ostriker."
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