CITA received a generous gift from the Raymond and Beverly Sackler Foundation to endow the Raymond and Beverly Sackler Visiting Astrophysicist Program. Each year CITA invites an internationally distinguished scholar conducting research in theoretical astrophysics to give two lectures at the University of Toronto. The researcher also meets informally with faculty and postdoctoral fellows at CITA as well as researchers and students in the Department of Astronomy and other departments. The visit is intended to be the highlight of the academic year at CITA.
The sixth Sackler lecture, titled `Inflation, Dark Energy, and the Fate of the Universe', was delivered by Prof. Andrei Linde of Stanford University on 10 April 2003 to an enthusiastic audience of students and faculty. Prof. Linde summarized his work on the theory of cosmic inflation, and its implications for the formation of structure in the universe and the birth of new inflationary domains. He also delivered a technical talk entitled ``Inflation, Dark Energy, and M-Theory''. Linde is the author of about 200 publications on cosmology and particle physics, and two books on early universe cosmology. He has received many awards including the Lomonosov Award of the Soviet Academy of Science in 1978, the Oskar Klein Medal in Physics in 2001, and the Dirac Medal in Theoretical Physics in 2002.
| 2001 | John N. Bahcall | Black Professor of Natural Sciences, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton |
|---|---|---|
| 2000 | P.J.E. Peebles | Einstein Professor of Science, Princeton University |
| 1999 | Frank Shu | University Professor, University of California at Berkeley |
| 1998 | Peter Goldreich | Lee A. DuBridge Professor of Astrophysics and Planetary Physics, Caltech |
| 1997 | Martin J. Rees | Royal Society Research Professor, Institute of Astronomy, Cambridge; Astronomer Royal |
[ Back to CITA Annual Report 2003 ]