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John Friedman

  • Distinguished Professor Emeritus, Physics

Research Interests

John Friedman's research in  relativistic astrophysics involves neutron stars, black holes, gravitational waves from binary systems of these compact objects, and using these waves to constrain the behavior of matter above nuclear density.  His more mathematical work involves the topology of spacetime  in classical and quantum contexts.  Links above are to a detailed description of his research.  

Biographical Sketch

Friedman received his BA from Harvard College in 1967 and his PhD from the University of Chicago in 1973, supervised by Nobel laureate S. Chandrasekhar. He was a postdoc at Yale University from 1972-1974 and a Fermi Fellow at the University of Chicago from 1974-1976. Since 1976 he has been at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, where Friedman served for three years as Chair of the Department of Physics and where he is now University Distinguished Professor Emeritus. A Fellow of the International Society of General Relativity and Gravitation and of the American Physical Society (APS), Friedman served as chair of the APS's gravitational physics section. He has been on the editorial boards of Physical Review D and Classical and Quantum Gravity and was Divisional Associate Editor of Physical Review Letters.  His CV is on his  Personal Home Page.

Books

Friedman, John L.,   Notes on Gravitational Physics, arXiv2308.09826 (2023)
Friedman, John L., and Stergioulas, Nikolaos, Rotating Relativistic Stars , Cambridge University Press (2013).

Selected Publications

Friedman, John L., and Stergioulas, Nikolaos Basic Astrophysics and Astrophysical Implications of Neutron Star Inspiral and Coalescence,  arXiv:2005.14135, International Journal of Modern Physics D 29, 2041015 (2020).
Lackey, Benjamin D., Kyutoku, Koutarou, Shibata, Masaru, Brady, Patrick R., and Friedman, John L.“Extracting equation of state parameters from black hole-neutron star mergers: Aligned-spin black holes and a preliminary waveform model” Phys. Rev D 89, 043009 (2014).
Read, Jocelyn S., Baiotti, Luca, Creighton, Jolien D., Friedman, John L., Giacomazzo, Bruno, Kyutoku, Koutarou, Markakis, Charalampos, Rezzolla, Lucianno, and Shibata, Masaru. “Matter effects on binary neutron star waveforms,” Phys. Rev. D 88,  044042 (2013) .
Read, Jocelyn S., Baiotti, Luca, Creighton, Jolien D., Friedman, John L., Giacomazzo, Bruno, Kyutoku, Koutarou, Markakis, Charalampos, Rezzolla, Lucianno,  and Shibata, Masaru, "Matter effects on binary neutron star waveforms," Physical Review D 88 044042 (2013).
Keidl, Tobias S., Shah, Abhay, Friedman, John L., Price, Larry R., and Kim, Dong H., “Gravitational Self-force in a Radiation Gauge” Physical Review D82.12 (2010): 124012.
Read, Jocelyn S., Lackey, Benjamin D., Owen, Benjamin J., and Friedman, John L., "Constraints on a phenomenologically parametrized neutron-star equation of state," Phys. Rev. D 79, 124032 (2009).
Keidl, Toby S., Wiseman, Alan G., and Friedman, John L., "On finding fields and self-force in a gauge appropriate to separable wave equations,"  Phys. Rev. D 79, 124032 (2009). 
Friedman, John L., and Higuchi, Atsushi, Topological Censorship and Chronology Protection, , Topological Censorship and Chronology Protection, arXiv 0801.0735, Annalen der Physik 15, 109-128 (2006)
Friedman, John L., Uryu, Koji, and Shibata, Masaru "Thermodynamics of binary black holes and neutron stars," Phys. Rev. D 65, 064035 (2002).
Friedman, John L. and Morsink, Sharon, "Axial Instability of Rotating Relativistic Stars," Astrophysical Journal 502, 714 (1998).
Stergioulas, Nikolaos, Koranda, Scott, and Friedman, John L. "Upper Limits Set by Causality on the Mass and Rotation of Relativistic Stars" Astrophysical Journal 488, 799 (1997).
Friedman, John L., Witt, Donald M., and Schleich, Kristin  "Topological Censorship" Phys. Rev. Lett.  71, 1486 (1993).
Friedman, John L., Papastamatiou, Nicolas J., and Simon, Jonathan Z. "Failure of Unitarity for Interacting Fields on Spacetimes with Closed Timelike Curves" Phys. Rev. D  46, 4456 (1992).
Friedman, John L., and Higuchi, Atsushi, "State vectors in higher-dimensional gravity with kinematic quantum numbers of quarks and leptons" Nuclear Physics B  339, 491 (1990).
Friedman, John L. and Ipser, James R., "On the Maximum Mass of a Uniformly Rotating Neutron Star" Astrophysical Journal 314, 594 (1987).
Friedman, John L., Ipser, James R., and Parker, L.  "Rapidly Rotating Neutron Star Models " Astrophysical Journal 304, 115 (1986).
Friedman, John L., and Sorkin, Rafael D. , "Half-integral Spin from Quantum Gravity" Phys. Rev. Lett.  44, 1100 (1980).
Friedman, John L., Ipser, James R., and Sorkin, Rafael,  "Turning-Point Method for Axisymmetric Stability of Rotating Relativistic Stars" Astrophysical Journal 325, 722 (1978).
Friedman, John L. , "Generic Instability of Rotating Relativistic Stars ," Communications in Mathematical Physics  62, 247 (1978)
Friedman, John L. and Schutz, B. F.,  "Secular Instability of Rotating Newtonian Stars," Astrophysical Journal 222, 281 (1978).