Nationality American Role Physicist Institutions CaltechHarvard | Name John Kovac | |
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Thesis Detection of Polarization in the Cosmic Microwave Background using DASI Fields Experimental physics, Cosmology | ||
Residence United States of America | ||
John m kovac detection of b mode polarization at degree angular scales with bicep2
John M. Kovac (born 1970) is an American physicist and astronomer. His cosmology research, conducted at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Massachusetts, focuses on observations of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) to reveal signatures of the physics that drove the birth of the universe, the creation of its structure, and its present-day expansion. Currently, Kovac is an Associate Professor of Astronomy and Physics at Harvard University.
Contents
- John m kovac detection of b mode polarization at degree angular scales with bicep2
- Lecture by john m kovac from harvard university united states
- Education and early life
- Career
- Awards
- References
Lecture by john m kovac from harvard university united states
Education and early life
Kovac was born in Princeton, New Jersey. He attended Jesuit High School in Tampa, Florida. He received a bachelor's degree in Mathematics from Princeton University. He went on to the University of Chicago to receive a Masters and Doctorate in Physics in 2004. His thesis advisor was John Carlstrom.
Career
He is the principal investigator of the BICEP2 telescope, which is part of the BICEP and Keck Array series of experiments. Measurements announced on 17 March 2014 from the BICEP2 telescope give support to the idea of cosmic inflation, by reporting the first evidence for a primordial B-Mode pattern in the polarization of the CMB. If confirmed, this measurement provides a direct image of primordial gravitational waves and the quantization of gravity.
Prior to BICEP2, as a graduate student at the University of Chicago, Kovac worked on the Degree Angular Scale Interferometer led by John Carlstrom, which in 2002 announced the first detection of polarization in the CMB. In 2003, Kovac moved to Caltech as a Millikan Postdoctoral Fellow, beginning work under Andrew Lange on the QUaD telescope and on BICEP1, the predecessor of BICEP2. After BICEP1's deployment to the South Pole in 2006, at Lange's invitation Kovac joined the research faculty of Caltech as a Kilroy Fellow and led the team that proposed BICEP2. In 2009 Kovac joined the faculty at Harvard University.
Awards
In 2013 Kovac received the National Science Foundation Career Award. In 2011 Kovac was selected as a Sloan Research Fellow. He was awarded the 2002–2003 Sugarman Award by the Enrico Fermi Institute.