Professor Serguei Komissarov
- Position: Professor
- Areas of expertise: Computational physics; electrodynamics of black holes; relativistic magnetohydrodynamics; active galactic nuclei; neutron stars and pulsar wind nebulae; gamma ray bursts. Dynamics of alpine skiing.
- Email: S.S.Komissarov@leeds.ac.uk
- Phone: +44(0)113 343 5127
- Website: Personal webpage | ORCID
Profile
I am trying to understand complex astrophysical phenomena involving powerful flows propagating with almost the speed of light. Examples include jets from black holes of Active Galactic Nuclei, winds from Neutron Stars, and Gamma Ray Bursts. Physical theory of these phenomena and their computer simulations are my main research areas.
Responsibilities
- Quality Enhancement Officer
Research interests
When massive stars exhaust their nuclear fuel they die in the most spectacular fashion - their central core collapses either to a superdense ball of only few kilometres in size, neutron stars, or to a black hole. The gravitational energy released during or soon after the collapse drives huge explosions known as Supernovae and Hypernovae.
The life of neutron stars and black holes produced in this way remains most spectacular even after these explosions. In spite of decades of observational and theoretical research many key aspects of black hole/neutron star physics remains unclear and are awaiting for new generations of researches to take on them.
One of the most noticeable advances of recent years has been the development of powerful computational tools that allow invaluable insights to be gained into the phenomena of relativistic astrophysics, via numerical simulations. I am lucky to have being involved in these developments and to keep contributing to this most exciting area of relativistic astrophysics.
Recently, I have also developed an interest to the dynamics of alpine skiing. The interaction between a skier and snow on a hard piste via modern carving skis is a complicated topic which is not fully understood in terms of the laws of Newtonian mechanics including biomechanics. I am trying to develop basic mathematical models of this interaction and downhill runs which may help to enhance our understanding of skiing.
<h4>Research projects</h4> <p>Any research projects I'm currently working on will be listed below. Our list of all <a href="https://eps.leeds.ac.uk/dir/research-projects">research projects</a> allows you to view and search the full list of projects in the faculty.</p>Student education
In 2019/2020 I am a module leader for MATH2620 Fluid Dynamics 1.
Research groups and institutes
- Applied Mathematics
- Astrophysical and Geophysical Fluid Dynamics