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Suntzeff, High-Z Team Awarded Gruber Cosmology Prize
Texas A&M Physics Professor Nicholas B. Suntzeff is among 52 international researchers who have been chosen to share the 2007 Gruber Cosmology Prize for their work toward the discovery that the expansion of the universe is accelerating.
The $500,000 Gruber Cosmology Prize is widely acknowledged as second only to the Nobel Prize in terms of importance in the field of cosmology. The prize will be awarded to Saul Perlmutter and Brian Schmidt and their respective teams, the Supernova Cosmology Project and the High-Z Supernova Search Team, for their simultaneous discovery that “has radically changed our perception of cosmic evolution,” according to the citation. The prize will be awarded in September in England.
Suntzeff co-founded the High-Z Team along with Schmidt in 1994, serving as the principal investigator on the discovery of the supernovae. Prior to that, he co-founded a previous group, the Calan/Tololo Supernova Project, that used the brightness from a specific type of supernovae to produce not only a precise calibration but also a precise measurement of the Hubble constant — a key finding that paved the way for both teams’ subsequent Gruber Prize-winning discovery.
Each year the High-Z Team gave its data to different groups at different institutions, ensuring that the highest priority would be given to each part of the problem.
Both the High-Z and Supernova Cosmology Project teams reached the simultaneous conclusion that the universe was larger than it should be and, therefore, not in deceleration but rather acceleration. The discovery, since dubbed dark energy, was honored as “Science” magazine’s “Scientific Breakthrough of the Year” in 1998.
The Gruber Cosmology Prize is awarded annually in honor of a leading cosmologist, astronomer, astrophysicist or scientific philosopher for theoretical, analytical or conceptual discoveries leading to fundamental advances in the field. This year the prize will be shared in four parts: by Schmidt at the Australian National University; Perlmutter at the University of California, Berkeley; and the 51 co-authors of the key papers produced by each respective team.
Suntzeff will travel to the University of Cambridge to accept his share of the prize along with other members of the High-Z Team at a ceremony on September 7, 2007.