# Carlos Lousto

Carlos O. Lousto is a Distinguished Professor in the School of Mathematical Sciences in Rochester Institute of Technology, known for his work on black hole collisions.

## Professional career

Lousto is a Distinguished Professor in the RIT's School of Mathematical Sciences and co-director of the Center for Computational Relativity and Gravitation. He holds two PhDs, one in Astronomy (studying accretion disks around black holes and the structure of neutron stars) from the National University of La Plata, and one in Physics from the University of Buenos Aires (on Quantum Field Theory in curved spacetimes), received in 1987 and 1992.
Carlos Lousto has an extensive research experience which ranges from observational astronomy to black hole perturbation theory and numerical relativity to string theory and quantum gravity. He has authored and co-authored over 150 papers , including several reviews and book chapters. His research is funded by NSF and NASA grants and supercomputing allocations in national labs.
Lousto is a key author of the breakthrough on binary black hole simulations and his research discovered that supermassive black holes can be ejected from most galaxies at speeds of up to 5000 km/s. He recently performed challenging simulations of small mass ratio black hole binaries up to 100:1 and at separations up to 100M and for flip-flopping black holes. Lousto has designed the Funes (UTB), NewHorizon, BlueSky, and GreenPrairies (RIT) supercomputer clusters to perform binary black hole simulations and used them to support the first detection of gravitational waves from the merger of two black holes.

### Distinctions

In 1991, Carlos Lousto was honored with an Alexander von Humboldt Foundation fellowship.
In 2006 and in 2016 his research was acknowledged in the US congressional records.
In 2012, Carlos Lousto was elected a Fellow of the American Physical Society "For his important contributions at the interface between perturbation theory and numerical relativity and in understanding how to simulate binary black holes".
2016 Special Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics "For the observation of gravitational waves, opening new horizons in astronomy and physics".
2019 Edward A. Bouchet Award Recipient "For contributions to both numerical relativity, conducive to the solution of the binary black hole problem, and the understanding of the first detection of gravitational waves and service to the Hispanic scientific community, including the establishment of the Center for Gravitational Wave Astronomy, the University of Texas at Brownsville in 2003".

## Selected bibliography

Highlights per year:
* Lousto, Carlos O.; Mazzitelli, Francisco D. (1997-09-15). "Exact self-consistent gravitational shock wave in semiclassical gravity". Physical Review D. 56 (6): 3471–3477. arXiv:gr-qc/9611009. Bibcode:1997PhRvD..56.3471L. doi:10.1103/physrevd.56.3471. ISSN 0556-2821. S2CID 5075915.
* Lousto, Carlos O. (2000-06-05). "Pragmatic Approach to Gravitational Radiation Reaction in Binary Black Holes". Physical Review Letters. 84 (23): 5251–5254. arXiv:gr-qc/9912017. Bibcode:2000PhRvL..84.5251L. doi:10.1103/physrevlett.84.5251. ISSN 0031-9007. PMID 10990916. S2CID 1788277.
* Baker, J.; Brügmann, B.; Campanelli, M.; Lousto, C. O.; Takahashi, R. (2001-08-31). "Plunge Waveforms from Inspiralling Binary Black Holes". Physical Review Letters. 87 (12): 121103. arXiv:gr-qc/0102037. Bibcode:2001PhRvL..87l1103B. doi:10.1103/physrevlett.87.121103. ISSN 0031-9007. PMID 11580497. S2CID 39434471.
* Campanelli, M.; Lousto, C. O.; Marronetti, P.; Zlochower, Y. (2006-03-22). "Accurate Evolutions of Orbiting Black-Hole Binaries without Excision". Physical Review Letters. 96 (11): 11101. arXiv:gr-qc/0511048. Bibcode:2006PhRvL..96k1101C. doi:10.1103/physrevlett.96.111101. ISSN 0031-9007. PMID 16605808. S2CID 5954627.
* Campanelli, M.; Lousto, C. O.; Zlochower, Y. (2006-08-16). "Spinning-black-hole binaries: The orbital hang-up". Physical Review D. 74 (4): 041501. arXiv:gr-qc/0604012. Bibcode:2006PhRvD..74d1501C. doi:10.1103/physrevd.74.041501. ISSN 1550-7998. S2CID 119376905.
* Campanelli, Manuela; Lousto, Carlos; Zlochower, Yosef; Merritt, David (2007-03-05). "Large Merger Recoils and Spin Flips from Generic Black Hole Binaries". The Astrophysical Journal. 659 (1). American Astronomical Society: L5–L8. arXiv:gr-qc/0701164. Bibcode:2007ApJ...659L...5C. doi:10.1086/516712. ISSN 0004-637X. S2CID 9761881.
* Campanelli, Manuela; Lousto, Carlos O.; Zlochower, Yosef; Merritt, David (2007-06-07). "Maximum Gravitational Recoil". Physical Review Letters. 98 (23): 231102. arXiv:gr-qc/0702133. Bibcode:2007PhRvL..98w1102C. doi:10.1103/physrevlett.98.231102. ISSN 0031-9007. PMID 17677894. S2CID 29246347.
* Lousto, Carlos O.; Zlochower, Yosef (2011-01-24). "Orbital Evolution of Extreme-Mass-Ratio Black-Hole Binaries with Numerical Relativity". Physical Review Letters. 106 (4): 041101. arXiv:1009.0292. Bibcode:2011PhRvL.106d1101L. doi:10.1103/physrevlett.106.041101. ISSN 0031-9007. PMID 21405317. S2CID 46427657.
* Lousto, Carlos O.; Zlochower, Yosef (2011-12-02). "Hangup Kicks: Still Larger Recoils by Partial Spin-Orbit Alignment of Black-Hole Binaries". Physical Review Letters. 107 (23): 231102. arXiv:1108.2009. Bibcode:2011PhRvL.107w1102L. doi:10.1103/physrevlett.107.231102. ISSN 0031-9007. PMID 22182078. S2CID 15546595.
* Lousto, Carlos O.; Healy, James (2015-04-06). "Flip-Flopping Binary Black Holes". Physical Review Letters. 114 (14): 141101. arXiv:1410.3830. Bibcode:2015PhRvL.114n1101L. doi:10.1103/physrevlett.114.141101. ISSN 0031-9007. PMID 25910104. S2CID 36664234.
* Abbott, B. P.; Abbott, R.; Abbott, T. D.; Abernathy, M. R.; Acernese, F.; et al. (LIGO collaboration and Virgo collaboration) (2016-02-11). "Observation of Gravitational Waves from a Binary Black Hole Merger". Physical Review Letters. 116 (6): 061102. arXiv:1602.03837. Bibcode:2016PhRvL.116f1102A. doi:10.1103/physrevlett.116.061102. ISSN 0031-9007. PMID 26918975.