Basilis C. Xanthopoulos

Basilis C. Xanthopoulos (1951 - November 27, 1990) was a Greek theoretical physicist, well known in the field of general relativity for his contributions to the study of colliding plane waves.

Xanthopoulos was born in Drama. After majoring in mathematics at the University of Thessaloniki he moved to the University of Chicago, where he earned his Ph.D. in 1978. During this time, he collaborated with Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar on colliding plane waves. In particular, they discovered an exact solution which models two gravitational plane waves which collide, interact nonlinearly, and create in the interaction zone a curved region of spacetime which is locally isometric to the Kerr vacuum. This is now called the Chandrasekhar-Xanthopoulos colliding plane wave model.

Xanthopoulos and his colleague Stephanos Pnevmatikos were murdered by a 32-year old disgruntled post-graduate student, named Giorgos Petrodaskalakis (who later commited suicide)Fact|date=September 2008, on the evening of November 27, 1990.

References

* [http://www.mlahanas.de/Greeks/new/BXanthopoulos.htm Page containing information about Xanthopoulos' life and death, and a short publication list of his works.]

*; this paper gives the Chandrasekhar/Xanthopoulos colliding plane wave solution.