Distinguished Professor Leonard Parker
	leonard@uwm.edu Telephone: (414) 229-6437 Room: 402

Leonard Parker's pioneering work on particle creation in the early universe developed a framework used in more than a thousand subsequent papers on quantum field theory in curved spacetime. A fellow of the American Physical Society, Parker has served on the editorial board of the Journal of Mathematical Physics and is presently on the editorial boards of the International Journal of Modern Physics A and Modern Physics Letters A. His current interests include cosmological models involving phase transitions and other quantum processes, fundamental aspects of quantum fields in curved spacetime, and the relativistic astrophysics of rapidly rotating neutron stars. He also works on techniques for doing symbolic calculation by computer and is co-developer of an important system for doing tensor analysis by computer.

Leonard Parker's work in quantum field theory is concerned with quantum processes in strong gravitational fields. These include the production of particles by gravitational fields in the early universe and by black holes. He showed that the rapid early expansion of the universe can create elementary particles. This is probably the earliest dynamical process which can equalize the expansion rates of the universe along different directions, thus bringing about an isotropic expansion. At about the same time as Hawking and Wald, he obtained the probability distribution of particles created by a black hole. He has calculated the effects of strong gravitational fields on the atomic spectrum of hydrogen, and has worked on the renormalization group in curved spacetime. He is currently collaborating on a book about quantum fields in curved spacetime.

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