- Eric Poisson
Infobox Scientist
box_width =
name = Eric Poisson
image_size =
caption =
birth_date =
birth_place =
death_date =
death_place =
residence =
citizenship =
nationality =
ethnicity =
fields =
workplaces =
alma_mater =
doctoral_advisor =
academic_advisors =
doctoral_students =
notable_students =
known_for =
author_abbrev_bot =
author_abbrev_zoo =
influences =
influenced =
awards =
religion =
footnotes =Eric Poisson is a
Canadian physicist specializing in the theory ofblack holes . Poisson is currently aprofessor at theUniversity of Guelph . Poisson was awarded the 2005Herzberg Medal , the highest honor awarded by theCanadian Association of Physicists .Education
He was born in
Montreal ,Quebec and grew up inRimouski andQuebec City . He obtained his BSc fromLaval University in Quebec City, and his Ph.D. at theUniversity of Alberta , inEdmonton . He received his doctorate in 1991 under the supervision ofWerner Israel .Research
His doctoral dissertation was on the concept of
mass inflation (not to be confused with cosmological inflation), which he pioneered with Israel in a series of seminal papers. Prior to the understanding of mass inflation, it was believed that wormholes into other universes would be found inside some black holes. Mass inflation closes off these wormholes in realistic black holes. Poisson's work on black hole interiors has been reviewed in popular science books as well as in the scientific press.fact|date=June 2008After completing his doctorate, Poisson spent three years as a postdoctoral fellow in Kip Thorne's research group at the
California Institute of Technology , inPasadena . During this period, he became interested in thegravitational wave signatures that black hole systems might produce. Such signatures are crucial for the operation of gravitational wave detectors which are being developed such asLIGO . This work continued for a subsequent year spent a year withClifford Will atWashington University inSt. Louis .His research now focuses on
gravitational self-force , which is the force on a body moving through a gravitational field arising from the mass and energy of the body itself. This self-force is expected to play a crucial role in understanding the motion of a stellar mass black hole orbiting and eventually spiraling into asupermassive black hole such as those that reside at the centers of galaxies. These astronomical systems will be of special interest to space-based gravitational wave detectors such as LISA when they are built, because they will allow precision measurements of the gravitational field of a black hole for the first time. For his important contributions to all of these areas of gravitational physics,
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.