Education:Turner, Michael S., 1949-The Bruce V. and Diana M. Rauner Distinguished Service Professor and Chair of the Department of Astronomy & Astrophysics at The University of Chicagocosmologist
B.S., Caltech, 1971 (Phi Beta Kappa)
PhD, Stanford, 1978
Honors:
Member, National Academy of Sciences (elected 1997)
Fellow, American Academy of Arts and Sciences (elected 1996)
Fellow, American Physical Society (elected 1986)NSF Fellow, 1971-74
Compton Lecturer, 1980
Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Fellow, 1983
Quantrell Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching, 1983
Helen B. Warner Prize, American Astronomical Society, 1984
Fellow, American Physical Society, 1986
Gravity Research Foundation Essay Competition, First Award, 1991
Fellow, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 1996
Julius Edgar Lilienfeld Prize, American Physical Society, 1997
National Academy of Sciences, 1997
Bruce V. & Diana M. Rauner Distinguished Service Professor, 1998
Paul Klopsteg Prize, American Association of Physics Teachers, 1999
Gravity Research Foundation Essay, 2nd Prize, 1999
The Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Scholar for 2002-2003 (see also below)
Biography:
Michael S. Turner
Born: Los Angeles California, 29 July 1949.Ph.D. (Physics), Stanford University, 1978.
B.S. (Physics), California Institute of Technology, 1971.
\positions
University of Chicago (1982--):
1978--80
Enrico Fermi Fellow;
1980--83
Assistant Professor;
1983--85
Associate Professor;
1985--
Professor.
Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory(1983--);1983--89
Member, Astrophysics Group, FNAL;
1989--
Deputy Head, Astrophysics Group, FNAL;
1994--
Scientist II.\awards
1980
Arthur Compton Lecturer.
1983
Quantrell Prize for Undergraduate Teaching
1983--85
Alfred P. Sloan Fellow
1984
Helen B. Warner Prize
1986
Fellow, American Physical Society
1991
Gravity Research Foundation, First Award
1994
Halley Lecturer, Oxford University
\endawards\pubs
263. Stebbins A.J. and Turner M.S., 1989, ``Is the Great Attractor Really a Great Wall?'' ApJLett 339, 13. 264. Ressell M.T. and Turner M.S., 1989, ``The Grand Unified Photon Spectrum: A Coherent View of the Diffuse Extragalactic Background Radiation,'' \CommentsAp XIV, 323. 265. M.S. Turner, 1990, ``Windows on the Axion,'' PhysRep 197, 67. 266. Griest K., Kamionkowski M., and Turner M.S., 1990, ``Supersymmetric Dark Matter above the W Mass,'' PhysRevD 41, 3565. 267. Kolb E.W., Salopek D.S., and Turner M.S., 1990, ``Origin of Density Fluctuations in Extended Inflation,'' PhysRevD 42, 3925. 268. Turner M.S. and Wilczek F., 1990, ``Relic Gravitational Waves and Extended Inflation,'' PhysRevLett 65, 3080. 269. Turner M.S., Watkins R., and Widrow L.M., 1991, ``Microwave Distortions from Collapsing Domain Wall Bubbles,'' ApJLett 367, 43. 270. Turner M.S., 1991, ``The Tilted Universe, and Other Remnants of the Pre-Inflationary Universe,'' Physical Review D, 44, 3737. 271. L. Krauss and M. S. Turner 1995, ``The Cosmological Constant is Back'', Gen. Rel. Grav., 27, 1137. 272. E. W. Kolb and M. S. Turner 1990 ``The Early Universe'', Addison-Wesley, Redwood City, Ca.
\endpubs
Michael S. TurnerMichael S. Turner is the Bruce V. and Diana M. Rauner Distinguished Service Professor and Chair of the Department of Astronomy & Astrophysics at The University of Chicago. He also holds appointments in the Department of Physics and Enrico Fermi Institute at Chicago and is member of the scientific staff at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory. Turner received his B.S. in Physics from the California Institute of Technology (1971) and his Ph.D. in Physics from Stanford University (1978). His association with The University of Chicago began in 1978 as an Enrico Fermi Fellow and in 1980 he joined the faculty. Since 1979 Turner has been involved in the Aspen Center for Physics and served as its President from 1989 to 1993.
Turner is a Fellow of the APS and of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and is a member of the National Academy of Sciences. He has been honored with the Helen B. Warner Prize of the American Astronomical Society, the Julius Edgar Lilienfeld Prize of the American Physical Society, the Halley Lectureship at Oxford University, the Klopsteg Lecture Award of the American Association of Physics Teachers, and the Quantrell Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching at Chicago. Turner has given more than 200 public lectures, from Kathmandu to Singapore and even Chicago, and his unique transparencies were featured in a one-man show at the CfPA Gallery.
Turner's research focuses on the earliest moments of the Universe. He was one of the first to appreciate the deep connections between particle physics and cosmology, and helped to pioneer this interdisciplinary area of research which is thriving today. With Edward Kolb and David Schramm, Turner established the Theoretical Astrophysics Group at Fermilab and with Kolb co-authored the monograph, The Early Universe. Turner has made also important contributions to inflationary Universe theory, understanding of dark matter and the origin of structure, and his current research focuses on the dark energy that this is causing the Universe to speed up.
Turner is a cosmologist, and he has made important contributions to inflationary Universe theory, understanding of dark matter and the origin of structure. Turner and Edward Kolb helped to establish the Theoretical Astrophysics Group at Fermilab and wrote the monograph, The Early Universe. Eleven of Turner's former students and postdocs hold faculty positions at universities in Canada and the US.
.
My research focuses on the application of modern ideas in elementary-particle theory to cosmology and astrophysics. I believe that this approach holds the key to answering the most pressing questions in cosmology. For example, there is reason to believe that the ubiquitous dark matter that holds the Universe together is elementary particles left over from the earliest moments, that the primeval inhomogeneity in the distribution of matter, which was revealed by COBE and which seeded all the structure in the Universe seen today, arose from quantum-mechanical fluctuations occurring during a very early burst of expansion called inflation, and that the existence of ordinary matter resulted from particle interactions in the early Universe that make the proton unstable and do not respect the symmetry between matter and antimatter. By testing these ideas with cosmological data, outer space becomes a window to the earliest moments of creation and to the unification of the forces and particles of Nature.Over the next decade the search for particle dark matter, the mapping of the distribution of matter in the Universe a few hundred thousand years after the beginning through precision measurements of the cosmic microwave background radiation, and the mapping of structure in the present Universe by determining the positions of millions of galaxies should definitively test these bold ideas. Much of the crucial experimental work is being done by colleagues at Chicago; for example, the Sloan Digital Sky Survey will map the positions of a million galaxies and the DASI, TopHat, MAP, and Python experiments will measure the fine-scale anisotropy of the cosmic microwave background radiation.
Current specific areas of research include: big-bang nucleosynthesis in era of precision cosmology; theoretical aspects of inflationary cosmology; testing the inflationary paradigm; determining the nature of the dark energy that is causing the Universe to accelerate; dark matter and dark-matter detection; dark matter and the formation of structure in the Universe; the origin of the cosmic asymmetry between matter and antimatter; understanding how to use precision measurements of the fine-scale anisotropy of the cosmic microwave background and large-scale structure to probe inflation and fundamental physics; and aspects of axion, neutrino and string cosmology.
Michael Turner's Reflections 2000 essay, "Limits to our Arrogance?" (see also below)
Publications:
Spontaneous Creation of Almost Scale-Free Density Perturbations in an Inflationary Universe. J.M. Bardeen, P.J. Steinhardt, and M.S. Turner. Phys. Rev. D 28, 679, 1983.
Supersymmetric Dark Matter above the W Mass. K. Griest, M. Kamionkowski, and M.S. Turner. Phys. Rev. D 41, 3565, 1990.
The Early Universe. E.W. Kolb and M.S. Turner. Addison-Wesley, Redwood City, 1990.
The Cosmological Constant is Back. L. Krauss and M.S. Turner. Gen. Rel. Grav. 27, 1137, 1995.
CDM Models with a Smooth Component. M.S. Turner and M. White. Phys. Rev. D 56, R4439, 1997.
First Results of a High-sensitivity Search for Cosmic Axions. K. van Bibber et al. Phys. Rev. Lett. 80, 2043, 1998.
Big-bang Nucleosynthesis Enters the Precision Era. D.N. Schramm and M.S. Turner. Rev. Mod. Phys. 70, 303, 1998.
Cosmic Rosetta Stone. C. Bennett, M.S. Turner, and M. White. Physics Today, November 1997, p. 32
Sharpening the Predictions of Big-bang Nucleosynthesis. S. Burles, K. Nollett, J. Truran and M.S. Turner. Phys. Rev. Lett. 82, 4176, 1999.
Constraining Dark Energy with SNe Ia and Large-scale Structure. M.S. Turner. Phys. Rev. Lett. 82, 1999.
Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Scholar for 2002-2003
Michael S. Turner is the Rauner Distinguished Service Professor in the departments of astronomy & astrophysics and physics; recipient of the university's Quantrell Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching; and a member of the scientific staff at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory. He has been elected a member of the National Academy of Sciences and a fellow of the American Physical Society as well as the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He has been honored with the Warner Prize of the American Astronomical Society, the Lilienfeld Prize of the American Physical Society, the Halley Lectureship at Oxford University, and the Klopsteg Lecture Award of the American Association of Physics Teachers.
Professor Turner is a cosmologist whose research focuses on the earliest moments of creation. He was among the first to appreciate the deep connections between elementary particle physics and cosmology. His current research deals with the mystery of why the expansion of the universe is speeding up. His article on dark matter and dark energy, "More than Meets the Eye," was featured in the Best of American Science Writing 2001.
1997 Julius Edgar Lilienfeld Prize to
Michael S. Turner
The University of ChicagoCitation:
"For his pioneering contributions to the field of particle-cosmology, particularly the exploration of non-baryonic dark matter, and for his ability to communicate the excitement of the field."Background:
Dr. Michael Turner receive his BS degree in physics from the California Institute of Technology in 1971 and his Ph.D. in physics from Stanford University in 1978. He currently holds appointments at The University of Chicago as Professor of Physics and of Astronomy and Astrophysics. He also is a Staff Scientist at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory. His research concerns the earliest history of the Universe and the application of elementary particle theory to cosmology.Dr. Turner has been honored with the Helen B. Warner Prize of the American Astronomical Society, the Quantrell Award for excellence in undergraduate teaching at The University of Chicago, and the Halley Lectureship at Oxford University. He is a Fellow of the APS, and of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He has served on the Executive Board of the APS and as chair of the APS Publications Oversight Committee, as President of the Aspen Center for Physics, and on the National Research Council's Committee on Astronomy and Astrophysics. His transparencies were featured in a one-man show at the CfPA Art Gallery.
Limits to our arrogance?
Michael S. TurnerCosmologists are arrogant. They believe they can determine how the universe began, has evolved thus far, and will ultimately end. As a cosmologist, I must defend this arrogance. Without it, we would have never undertaken the seemingly impossible task of trying to figure out the universe. This century's cosmologists have much of which they can be proud. Using the hot big bang theory, the evolution of the universe can be traced from the hot, formless, quark soup that existed earlier than 0.00001 seconds to the universe we see 14 billion years later, comprised of galaxies moving away from one another. This grand adventure began in the 1920s when Edwin Powell Hubble used the 100-inch Hooker telescope on Mount Wilson to establish that galaxies are the building blocks of the universe and to discover that they are moving away from one another, revealing the expansion of the universe (George Ellery Hale built the 100-inch Hooker telescope, and both Hale and Hubble had long associations with the University of Chicago). Since then, cosmologists have mapped the large-scale features of the universe, including clusters of galaxies, superclusters, and great walls comprised of tens of thousands of galaxies.
Today, the Hubble Space Telescope and 400-inch Keck telescopes are revealing the birth of galaxies; space-borne, X-ray instruments are glimpsing the invisible side of the universe; and microwave receivers are viewing the universe as it was in its infancy through the cosmic microwave echo of the big bang.
Professor Michael S. Turner, Bruce V. & Diana M. Rauner Distinguished Service Prof., Depts. Astronomy & Astrophysics and Physics, Enrico Fermi Inst., and the College
Still, cosmologists are not satisfied. We want to understand more. We aspire to trace our universe back to the subatomic quantum fluctuations that seeded the galaxies, clusters of galaxies, and even larger structures. We want to understand the nature of the mysterious dark matter that holds the universe together and the dark energy that is making it speed up. With bold ideas rooted in the deep connections between the inner space of the elementary particles and the outer space of the cosmos and a flood of new observations made possible by great technological advances, the flyboys of science speak of a Golden Age in cosmology-and it is hard to argue with them.
Cosmological theorists are pinning their hopes on a theory known as "Inflation + Cold Dark Matter." It holds that "our universe" was created in a burst of expansion powered by "false-vacuum" energy. This burst is referred to as inflation. Because of that explosive growth spurt, all that we can and will ever be able to see originated from the tiniest bit of the pre-inflationary landscape. This explains why the universe we observe is so uniform and predicts that it is spatially flat. This burst is our big bang event, and the demise of the false-vacuum energy that caused it is the origin of the heat of the big bang and ultimately all matter. If inflation occurred once, we can be sure that it has occurred an infinite number of times in the past and will continue to occur an infinite number of times in the future. Inflation sidesteps the issue of the "beginning," changes "the big bang" to countless big bangs, and leads to a universe that is actually a multiverse comprised of countless bubble universes.The theory also purports that the stuff holding our universe together is not the stuff we are made of, but rather slowly moving elementary particles (called Cold Dark Matter) left over from the earliest, fiery moments. Owing to quantum fluctuations blown up to astronomical size during inflation, the Cold Dark Matter is not uniformly distributed; it is a little lumpy (variations in the density of around 1 part in 100,000). Gravity acting over the past 14 billion years has turned this lumpiness into all the cosmic structure that we see today-yes, really!
The first evidence supporting this remarkable picture came in 1998. In particular, new measurements (some done by University of Chicago scientists) of the tiny variations in the intensity of the cosmic microwave background radiation across the sky indicate that the universe is flat, as predicted by inflation. The detailed pattern of these tiny variations is consistent with the inflationary picture of the quantum origin of the lumpiness. Further, the "missing energy" needed to bring the total mass/energy density to the critical value was found. A flat universe must have the critical density, and matter only accounts for 40 percent. Evidence for the other 60 percent came in an unexpected discovery. For 70 years cosmologists have been trying to measure the gravitational slowing of the expansion, when they finally succeeded, they found that the universe is actually speeding up. This odd twist was good news for inflation, because the speeding up implies the existence of an odd form of dark energy that contributes 60 percent of the critical density. When added to the 40 percent known to exist in matter, this totals 100 percent. Now we just have to figure out what exactly is that dark energy.
This was the tip of the cosmic iceberg. A veritable avalanche of cosmological data that should definitively test Inflation + Cold Dark Matter is coming. Many of the key measurements involve University of Chicago scientists: a higher resolution map of the cosmic microwave background from experiments at the South Pole, on balloons, and in satellites; a new map of the universe today in the form of 3-D positions for a million galaxies (the Sloan Digital Sky Survey); a novel use of the cosmic microwave background radiation to tomographically map the universe a few billion years after its beginning.Elsewhere, some will attempt to directly detect the Cold Dark Matter particles that hold our own galaxy together, and others will try to create them with powerful particle accelerators at Fermilab and CERN. The Hubble Space Telescope and its successor, the Next Generation Space Telescope, will take us deeper into space and further back in time to view the first stars. The Chandrasekhar X-ray Observatory, to be launched July 9 by NASA, will give us new X-ray eyes with nearly the resolution of the Hubble Space Telescope
Will proving that Inflation + Cold Dark Matter is correct finally satisfy cosmologists? Arrogance is pretty powerful stuff. So probably not. But are there limits to how much we can learn about the universe? There are the obvious worries-money and public interest in spending for an activity with no practical application, for instance. I doubt these factors will set the limit. Curiosity about the beginning has and always will be unlimited. For 50 years, elementary-particle physicists have shown that cleverness in the design of new instruments-particle accelerators, for example-and in concepts for new ways to probe nature can get around funding constraints-and we are at least as clever as they are!
Another worry is the fact that cosmology is an archaeological science: since experiments as grand as creating a universe cannot be carried out, we must rely upon relics, such as the cosmic microwave echo, the lightest elements which were cooked in the big bang, and even matter itself. I cannot resist mentioning that the father of inflation, Alan Guth, undertook a serious study of the creation of a universe in the laboratory and concluded that it is possible. Need I say more about arrogance? Maybe our bubble universe is a freshman physics lab in another universe gone awry. It is certainly possible that we will run out of relics before our curiosity is satisfied, but I am too optimistic to believe that this will be our demise.
The most interesting obstacles are more fundamental. A key feature of inflation-the fact that it makes the present state of the universe insensitive to how it began-throws up a kind of screen that blocks knowledge of earlier times. Further, inflation multiplies the possibilities and exponentially increases the territory to be explored. With an infinite number of inflationary bubbles that will never communicate with one another, even complete knowledge of our universe amounts to infinitesimal knowledge of the whole. If the Copernican Principle, the guiding principle in cosmology for the past 400 years, is correct, then this is not an obstacle in practice. (The Copernican Principle holds that we occupy a typical place in the cosmos.)
However, in a universe of infinite possibilities, even the extremely improbable often and infinitely happen. It could be that our bubble universe is very atypical. For example, it may be that the typical bubble never evolves living creatures. If this is the case, then our view of the universe is highly anthropocentric. (Before inflation, we faced an infinite universe that we could never fully explore. However, the fact that the great portion we could see looked so similar to our own neighborhood, gave us confidence in the applicability of the Copernican Principle.)
While a handful of cosmologists have long advocated the anti-Copernican, or Anthropic Principle-namely that the laws of physics and the universe itself are the way they are so life could evolve and become aware of them-few took this view seriously. For me, it was like giving up on a hard problem by looking in the back of the book for the answer. Inflation, however, makes us take a more serious look at the anthropocentric possibility.
According to string theory (the most successful and promising attempt to unify all the forces and particles of nature), the realization of the laws of physics seen in different bubbles could be quite different. Those differences include the number of spatial dimensions, whether or not matter is stable, and other factors that determine whether or not life will develop. Further, even within identical bubbles, historical accidents could make the difference between a barren universe and one teeming with life. For example, it might require an extremely improbable event shortly after inflation to lead to a future that is conducive to life. If anthropocentric considerations and not simple probabilities have determined the character of the bubble in which we find ourselves, there may truly be a fundamental limit to what we can infer about the universe.
Fundamental limits or not, I am bullish on cosmology. During the next two decades there will be exciting developments and great advances in our understanding of the universe. Still, the question remains, are the limits to our understanding of the universe set by our own creativity and boldness or are there fundamental limits to our understanding?Should we continue to spend money on exploring the universe if what scientists discover has no practical application?
The Nature of the Universe ; the Great Debate in 1998
Cosmology Solved? Quite Possibly!
Dr. Michael Turner
Cosmology: From Quantum Fluctuations to the Accelerating Universe
(lecture given on September 21, 1999)Today the Universe consists of galaxies moving away from one another in a pattern of motion that indicates a big-bang beginning. We can trace the history of the Universe back to the hot quark soup that existed a fraction of a second after the beginning. Armed with bold ideas that are rooted in the deep connections between the inner space of elementary particles and the outer space of the cosmos, we are trying to extend our understanding back to an even earlier time when galaxies existed only as quantum fluctuations in the fuzzy subatomic world. If these ideas are correct, then our big bang was a burst of expansion called inflation, galaxies are held together by the gravity of elementary particles left over from the big bang, and the expansion of the Universe is speeding up because of an odd form of energy that pervades the Universe. A flood of observations made possible by technological advances are putting these ideas to the test, and in the process have presented us with new puzzles, like the fact that the Universe is speeding up, not slowing down! These are very exciting times in cosmology.
Michael S. Turner is the Bruce V. and Diana M. Rauner Distinguished Service Professor and Chair of the Department of Astronomy & Astrophysics at The University of Chicago. He also holds appointments in the Department of Physics and Enrico Fermi Institute at Chicago and is member of the scientific staff at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory. Turner received his B.S. in Physics from the California Institute of Technology (1971) and his Ph.D. in Physics from Stanford
University (1978). His association with The University of Chicago began in 1978 as an Enrico Fermi Fellow and in 1980 he joined the faculty. Turner is a Fellow of the APS and of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and is a member of the National Academy of Sciences. He has been honored with the Helen B. Warner Prize of the American Astronomical Society, the Julius Edgar Lilienfeld Prize of the American Physical Society, the Halley Lectureship at Oxford University, and the Quantrell Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching at Chicago. Turner has served on or chaired many advisory committees for the NRC, DoE, NSF and NASA, and since 1984 he has been involved in the governance of the Aspen Center for Physics, serving as President from 1989 to 1993. He currently serves on the Board of Trustees of the Illinois Math and Science Academy. Turner's transparencies were featured in a one-man show at the CfPA Gallery.Turner is a cosmologist whose research focuses on the earliest moments of the Universe. He has made important contributions to inflationary Universe theory, understanding of dark matter and the origin of structure. Turner and Edward Kolb helped to establish the Theoretical Astrophysics Group at Fermilab and wrote the monograph, The Early Universe. Eleven of Turner's former students and postdocs hold faculty positions at universities in Canada and the US
CHAOS THEORIES - MICHAEL S. TURNER
(from the University of Chicago Magazine)No. 1 on Michael Turner's to-do list, despite the spring-cleaning schedule optimistically chalked on his blackboard a few years back, is "to figure out what's causing the universe to speed up. So far," says Turner, the Bruce V. & Diana Rauner distinguished service professor in astronomy & astrophysics, physics, the Enrico Fermi Institute, and the College, "all we've done is give it a name. We call it dark energy."
Turner himself is credited with coining that phrase to describe the unknown force that causes the accelerating expansion of the universe. "Stars, us, earth, trees-we're made of star stuff," the theoretical astrophysicist says, "but we're not made of the stuff of the cosmos": dark matter. "I'm hoping to find dark matter on my desk," he continues, only half joking.
He's well aware that the masses of star stuff in his office can have almost magical properties. "One of the things that we all try to do is avoid thinking linearly. Having a messy desk helps do that," he theorizes. "It provides the odd connection. It's constructive chaos. Two folders spill on top of one another," and a "goofy" connection is born. Serendipity also enters the equation. "I'll have this idea on the back burner," he explains, "so I'll keep the folder on my desk. A student or a post-doc comes in and says, 'I was thinking about this,' and I say, 'So am I! Let's see what we've got.'"
Many items in Turner's office have, at first glance, nothing to do with his research or his duties as department chair, but he makes the connections. There's a wizard hat, Mickey's ears still attached. "I like to think of myself as a wizard. A wizard's hat helps me get good ideas." There are "all my room keys from my last year of travels-that remind me why I'm weary. I've got a little action-hero figure here, so I can be tough. And I have a glass paperweight that my grandmother gave me."
Also on the desk is a "little harmless looking device," his laptop computer. He laughs and confesses, "That's where the real piles are."
