Prof. Steve J. Schwartz

Professor Steve SchwartzProfessor Steve Schwartz Department of Physics - Imperial College

Steve is active in several past, present, and future space missions.He is a leading authority on shock waves in space and is Professor of Space Physics at Imperial College London.

Physics Society: Professor Steven Schwartz (Imperial College) Space Weather, L11 (SS)

"Imagine threading a rubber band between two cards, and then twisting the middle," study leader Steve Schwartz of the Imperial College of London told SPACE.com.
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"Whether this is a set of long, [three mile] cracks, or a multitude of much smaller ones isn't obvious to me," Schwartz said."My hunch is therefore: one big one, followed by lots and lots of ongoing smaller ones."

What this means for SGR 1806-20 isn't clear, but it seems that cracks form more to relieve pressure than as a sign that the star is blowing apart.

"The result of the cracking is to relax the interior and exterior field to a less twisted state," Schwartz said.

"For the first 200 ms it saturated almost all instruments on satellites equipped to observe ?-rays", underlined Prof. Steve J. Schwartz from Imperial College London (UK) in his 16 June 2005 Astrophysical Journal paper.

Although designed to study the Earth's magnetosphere, the thermal electron detectors onboard Double star TC-2 and Cluster satellites performed unsaturated observations of this initial flare rise and decay (Image 4).

As explained in his 16 June paper, Professor Schwartz and his co-authors show that these unique data provide the first observational evidence of three separate timescales within the first 100 ms of this event.
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In particular, the large crustal fracturing inferred by us can easily excite toroidal modes with characteristic frequencies in the observed range", commented Professor Schwartz in his 16 June paper.

Therefore, Double Star TC-2 and Cluster data have not only enabled to directly estimate crustal properties of magnetars, they have also linked interior magnetic processes and their external consequences during giant flares.

"Cluster and Double Star were designed to study the various boundary layers of the Earth's magnetosphere, including the physics of magnetic reconnection.Such boundary layer physics has application throughout the astrophysical plasma universe, and it is therefore appropriate that these missions contribute in a more direct way to the study of magnetic reorganisation in an astrophysical object outside the solar system", concluded Professor Schwartz.

"For the first 200 ms it saturated almost all instruments on satellites equipped to observe ,-rays", underlined Prof. Steve J. Schwartz from Imperial College London (UK) in his 16 June 2005 Astrophysical Journal paper.

Although designed to study the Earth's magnetosphere, the thermal electron detectors onboard Double star TC-2 and Cluster satellites performed unsaturated observations of this initial flare rise and decay (Image 4).As explained in his 16 June paper, Professor Schwartz and his co-authors show that these unique data provide the first observational evidence of three separate timescales within the first 100 ms of this event.
...
In particular, the large crustal fracturing inferred by us can easily excite toroidal modes with characteristic frequencies in the observed range", commented Professor Schwartz in his 16 June paper.

Therefore, Double Star TC-2 and Cluster data have not only enabled to directly estimate crustal properties of magnetars, they have also linked interior magnetic processes and their external consequences during giant flares.

"Cluster and Double Star were designed to study the various boundary layers of the Earth's magnetosphere, including the physics of magnetic reconnection.Such boundary layer physics has application throughout the astrophysical plasma universe, and it is therefore appropriate that these missions contribute in a more direct way to the study of magnetic reorganisation in an astrophysical object outside the solar system", concluded Professor Schwartz.
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Steve Schwartz, Space and Atmospheric Physics Group, Blackett Laboratory, Imperial College, United KingdomTel: +44-(0)20-7594-7660

"Imagine threading a rubber band between two cards, and then twisting the middle," study leader Steve Schwartz of the Imperial College of London told SPACE.com.
...
"Whether this is a set of long, [three mile] cracks, or a multitude of much smaller ones isn't obvious to me," Schwartz said."My hunch is therefore: one big one, followed by lots and lots of ongoing smaller ones."

What this means for SGR 1806-20 isn't clear, but it seems that cracks form more to relieve pressure than as a sign that the star is blowing apart.

"The result of the cracking is to relax the interior and exterior field to a less twisted state," Schwartz said.

Steven J. Schwartz - later Professor at Imperial

Other winners of the RAS geophysics awards for 2006 include Professor Steve Schwartz of Imperial College London, Dr Clare Parnell of the University of St Andrews and Dr Brian Marsden of the Smithsonian Astronomical Observatory in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
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The Chapman Medal has been awarded to Professor Steve Schwartz in recognition of his pioneering work in solar terrestrial physics and space plasma physics.His theoretical work in the early 1990s on the "quasi-parallel shock", the component of the Earth's bow shock believed to be responsible for particle heating and acceleration, has been confirmed in the past few years by observations from the Cluster spacecraft.

"Imagine threading a rubber band between two cards, and then twisting the middle," study leader Steve Schwartz of the Imperial College of London told SPACE.com.
...
"Whether this is a set of long, [three mile] cracks, or a multitude of much smaller ones isn't obvious to me," Schwartz said."My hunch is therefore: one big one, followed by lots and lots of ongoing smaller ones."

What this means for SGR 1806-20 isn't clear, but it seems that cracks form more to relieve pressure than as a sign that the star is blowing apart.

"The result of the cracking is to relax the interior and exterior field to a less twisted state," Schwartz said.

Other winners of the RAS geophysics awards for 2006 include Professor Steve Schwartz of Imperial College London, Dr Clare Parnell of the University of St Andrews and Dr Brian Marsden of the Smithsonian Astronomical Observatory in Cambridge, Massachusetts.