mpp

Homepage of Serguei S Komissarov

I am a Professor of Computational Relativistic Astrophysics at Leeds University.
This page contains additional information, which does not fit the corporate style
of person pages of the University website

I was born in St Petersburg (Russia), one of the most beautiful cities in the world. This was less than a month before the first manned space flight.

I was graduated from The St Petersburg State University and started my scientific career at the Pushchino Radio Astronomy Observatory.

After a brief spell at the Jodrell Bank Observatory, winds of fortune carried me to the University of Leeds to work as a postdoc with Professor Sam Falle.   The years in Leeds have been most important in my development as a scientist. I am still in Leeds, now as a professor
myself.

           Full CV

I have been always fascinated by the Theory of Relativity and the extreme phenomena of the Universe where the relativistic effects are most profound. Active Galaxies, Pulsars and Pulsar Wind Nebulae, Gamma-Ray Bursts, X-ray Binaries - the list is ever increasing.

Computer simulations of such phenomena have been a major part of my research. I was among the few who were responsible for the rapid development of this area at the turn the century. Since then, this area has attracted many talented astrophysicists and mathematicians who are obtaining ever more impressive results.

Below are animations of some of our pioneering simulations.

Crab Nebula simulations (Camus et al., 2009)

GRB jet from magnetars (Komissarov & Barkov, 2007)

Disks and jets of collapsars (Barkov & Komissarov, 2008)

"There is no better way to learn than to teach." This may or may not be true, but I bet one can trace the origin of many excellent textbooks to lecture notes. Below are the lecture notes which I produced recently for my students. I hope they are not too bad.

What is your most favorite planet?