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Ignazio Ciufolini (born in Rome, Italy) is an Italian physicist active in the field of gravitational physics and General Relativity. He graduated 'Magna cum Laude' in 1980 at Sapienza University of Rome and awarded the PhD degree in Physics in 1984 at University of Texas at Austin under the supervision of John Archibald Wheeler, Richard Matzner, Steven Weinberg and Bryce DeWitt. From 1982 to 1988 he worked at University of Texas at Austin as teaching assistant, lecturer and research associate. He is Associate Professor of General Physics at University of Salento (Italy) and a member of Centro Fermi, Rome. He collaborated with John Archibald Wheeler, with which in 1995 wrote the book Gravitation and Inertia (the book awarded the Association of American Publishers' PROSE Award as the best 1995 professional and scholar book in physics and astronomy). He works mainly in the field of General Relativity and Gravitational Physics. Between 1992 and 1998 he has been a member of the international ESA-NASA team for the study of a space experiment for detection of gravitational waves using an orbiting laser interferometer, that lead to the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) project. He proposed also a method to measure the effects of gravitomagnetism using the data from the laser ranged satellites LAGEOS and LAGEOS-2. Ignazio Ciufolini is the Principal Investigator for the Italian Space Agency (ASI) of the Laser Relativity Satellite (LARES) mission, a space mission aimed to improve the accuracy of the measurement of frame-dragging.

Awards and Honours

• 1995. AAP PROSE Award as author (with John A. Wheeler) of the best 1995 professional and scholar book in physics and astronomy (Gravitation and Inertia).
• 2001. International Tomassoni-Chisesi Award for Physics of Sapienza, University of Rome.
• 2007. Cover of the 6 September issue of Nature dedicated to his review paper on Dragging of Inertial Frames and General Relativity.
• 2010. International Occhialini Prize and Medal of the UK Institute of Physics (IOP) and Italian Physical Society (SIF) for providing further experimental confirmation of Einstein's theory of General Relativity through the use of laser-ranged satellites to study and measure frame-dragging.

Misconducts

According to the moderators of the arXiv database, maintained by the Cornell University, Ciufolini repeatedly submits inappropriate articles under pseudonyms, in explicit violation of the arXiv policies. In particular, in December 2007 he used the pseudonym “G. Forst” to post on the ArXiv a paper criticizing the GP-B mission, direct competitor of his frame-dragging LAGEOS-based tests. The ArXiv moderators removed it.

References

1. Ignazio Ciufolini Curriculum Vitae on Centro Fermi web site. http://www.centrofermi.it/attachments/article/152/CV_Ciufolini_updated_2013.pdf
2. Ignazio Ciufolini and John Archibald Wheeler. Gravitation and Inertia. Princeton University Press. Princeton, New Jersey (1995). ISBN 0-691-03323-4.
3. AAP PROSE Awards 1995 Winners. http://pspcentral.org/rtAwards/attachArchive/winners_95.rtf
4. http://lisa.nasa.gov/Documentation/ppa2.08.pdf
5. Ciufolini, I. (2007). "Dragging of inertial frames". Nature. 449 (7158): 41–47. Bibcode:2007Natur.449...41C. doi:10.1038/nature06071. PMID 17805287.
6. Ciufolini, I. (1986). "Measurement of the Lense-Thirring drag on high-altitude, laser-ranged artificial satellites". Physical Review Letters. 56 (4): 278–281. Bibcode:1986PhRvL..56..278C. doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.56.278. PMID 10033146.
7. Ciufolini, I.; Pavlis, E. C. (2004). "A confirmation of the general relativistic prediction of the Lense–Thirring effect". Nature. 431 (7011): 958–960. Bibcode:2004Natur.431..958C. doi:10.1038/nature03007. PMID 15496915.
8. NATURE Volume 449 Number 7158. http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v449/n7158/index.html
9. https://www.iop.org/about/awards/bilateral/occhialini/medallists/page_38497.html
10. ^ Forst, G. (2007). "A critical analysis of the GP-B mission. I: on the impossibility of a reliable measurement of the gravitomagnetic precession of the GP-B gyroscopes". arXiv:0712.3934 .

External links

• Ignazio Ciufolini personal page on Centro Studi e Ricerche Enrico Fermi web site
• LARES Mission official web site
• University of Salento, Dipartimento di Ingegneria dell'Innovazione (in Italian)

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