Andrew Lyne | |
|---|---|
 Andrew Lyne in 2007 | |
| Born | Andrew Geoffrey Lyne (1942-07-13)13 July 1942 (age 83) |
| Education | The Portsmouth Grammar School |
| Alma mater | |
| Awards | Herschel Medal (1992) |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Radio astronomy Pulsars[1] |
| Institutions | Jodrell Bank Observatory University of Manchester University of Cambridge |
| Thesis | Interferometric Observations of Lunar Occulations and Pulsars (1970) |
| Doctoral advisor | Francis Graham-Smith[2] |
| Doctoral students | Duncan Lorimer[3] |
| Website | www |
Andrew Geoffrey LyneFRS (born 13 July 1942) is a Britishphysicist. Lyne isLangworthy Professor of Physics in theSchool of Physics and Astronomy, University of Manchester, as well as an ex-director of theJodrell Bank Observatory. Despite retiring in 2007 he remains an active researcher within the Jodrell Bank Pulsar Group.[4][5] Lyne writes that he is "mostly interested in finding and understanding radio pulsars in all their various forms and with their various companions. Presently, I am most occupied with the development of new multibeam search systems at Jodrell and Parkes, in order to probe deeper into the Galaxy, particularly for millisecondpulsars, young pulsars and any that might be inbinary systems."[6][1][7]
Lyne was educated atPortsmouth Grammar School, the Royal Naval School, Tal Handaq, Malta, and theUniversity of Cambridge, where he read theNatural Sciences Tripos as a student ofSt John's College, Cambridge.[6] After his undergraduate degree from Cambridge, he continued to theUniversity of Manchester for aPhD inRadio Astronomy where his research supervised byFrancis Graham-Smith.[2]
In 1991, Andrew Lyne andMatthew Bailes reported that they had discovered a pulsar orbited by a planetary companion;[8] this would have been the first planet detected around another star. However, after this was announced, the group went back and checked their work, and found that they had not properly removed the effects of theEarth's motion around theSun from their analysis, and, when the calculations were redone correctly, the pulse variations that led to their conclusions disappeared, and that there was in fact no planet aroundPSR 1829-10. When Lyne announced the retraction of his results at a meeting of theAmerican Astronomical Society, he received thunderous applause from his scientific colleagues for having the intellectual integrity and the courage to admit this error publicly.[9]
In 2003, Lyne and his team discovered the first binary system found in which both components were pulsedneutron stars.[10] Lyne's colleague Richard Manchester called thePSR J0737-3039 system a "fantastic natural laboratory" for studying specialized effects of theGeneral Theory of Relativity.Other recent work that Lyne has undertaken includes research on the globular cluster at 47 Tucanae,[11] whose dense stellar population acts as a nursery for millisecond and binary pulsars.
Lyne was awarded theHerschel Medal by theRoyal Astronomical Society in 1992 and elected aFellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 1996.[12]
| Academic offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by | Langworthy Professor at theUniversity of Manchester 2001–07 | Succeeded by |