Ofek Birnholtz - GW Scientist
Frontiers in Gravitational Wave Astrophysics Fellow
Center for Computational Relativity & Gravitation
Rochester Institute of Technology
LIGO Scientific Collaboration

* Formerly PhD student at Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel
Contact Information:
Ofek Birnholtz
Tel: +1-(585)-475-5943
ofek.birnholtz(at)ligo.org
ofek.birnholtz(at)mail.huji.ac.il
Office 78-1127
Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT)
170 Lomb Memorial Drive
Rochester, NY, 14623
USA

Research Interests:
Gravitational Waves
Astrophysical High Energy Sources
Effective Field Theory
Radiation-Reaction & Self-Force
Black Holes & Neutron Stars

PhD Supervisors: Tsvi Piran Barak Kol

Also Worth Mentioning:
2013 Arnold Rosenblum Prize for Excellence in graduate research
2013 Aladdin Youth Award (by UNESCO)
2011-2013 Hebrew University Senator, representing PhD students in Exact Sciences

Download CV
Papers I've published: (See an updated list on inspire)
* LIGO Scientific & Virgo Collaborations (B.P. Abbott et al.), 2016, Observation of Gravitational Waves from a Binary Black Hole Merger , Physical Review Letters, Volume 116, Issue 6, 12 February 2016, (LIGO-P150914, also on arXiv)
* LIGO Scientific & Virgo Collaborations (B.P. Abbott et al.), 2016, Tests of general relativity with GW150914, LIGO-P1500213 (e-Print: arXiv:1602.03841 [gr-qc])
* LIGO Scientific & Virgo Collaborations (B.P. Abbott et al.), 2016, Properties of the binary black hole merger GW150914 , LIGO-P1500218 (e-Print: arXiv:1602.03840 [gr-qc])
* Birnholtz, Ofek & Hadar, Shahar, 2015, Gravitational radiation-reaction in arbitrary dimension, Physical Review D, Volume 91, Issue 12, 23 June 2015 (also on arXiv). Additional Material/Code
* Birnholtz, Ofek, 2014, Comments on initial conditions for the Abraham-Lorentz(-Dirac) equation, International Journal of Modern Physics A, Volume 30, Issue 02, 20 January 2015 (also on arXiv).
* Birnholtz, Ofek, Hadar, Shahar & Kol, Barak, 2014, Radiation reaction at the level of the action, International Journal of Modern Physics A, Volume 29, Issue 24, 30 September 2014 (also on arXiv).
* Birnholtz, Ofek & Hadar, Shahar, 2013, Action for reaction in general dimension, Physical Review D, Volume 89, Issue 4, 5 February 2014 (also on arXiv). Additional Material/Code
* Birnholtz, Ofek, Hadar, Shahar & Kol, Barak, 2013, Theory of post-Newtonian radiation and reaction, Physical Review D, Volume 88, Issue 10, 27 November 2013 (also on arXiv).
* Birnholtz, Ofek & Piran, Tsvi 2013, Gravitational Wave Memory from Gamma Ray Bursts' Jets, Physical Review D, Volume 87, Issue 12, 24 June 2013 (also on arXiv). Additional Material/Code

Talks I've given:
* Gravitational Wave Observations — LIGO Introduction for students & researchers, Ben-Gurion University, Be'er-Sheva, Israel, April 2017.
* Modeled searches for Compact Binary Coalescences in LIGO data, at the Technion Workshop on Gravitational Waves and Compact Objects, Haifa, Israel, November 2016.
* "LIGO First Highlights: Gravitational Waves detected from Binary Black Hole Coalescence", seminar at Weizmann Institute, Rehovot, Israel, February 2016.
* LIGO First Highlights: Gravitational Waves detected from Binary Black Hole Coalescence, at the Israeli National Astronomy Day, Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel, February 2016.
* The Story of Gravitational Waves, on the popular webcast HaHalalit ("The Spaceship"), Israel, February 2016.
* Higher Dimensions & Higher Orders in EFT for Gravitational Waves, at the 14th Marcel Grossman Meeting, La Sapienza University, Rome, Italy, July 2015.
* How is an EFT for Gravitational Waves in any dimension like a bead on a string?, at the Binational Workshop of the Project "Gravitation and High Energy Physics", Humboldt University, Berlin, Germany, October 2014.
* How are Gravitational Waves in any dimension like a bead on a string?, at the 17th Capra Meeting on Radiation Reaction in General Relativity, Caltech, USA, June 2014.
* An action for reaction: From a bead on a string to Gravitational Waves, at the 15th Canadian Conference on General Relativity and Relativistic Astrophysics, Winnipeg, Canada, May 2014.
* Gravitational Wave Memory from Gamma Ray Bursts' Jets, at the Yukawa International Seminar, Kyoto, Japan, June 2013 .
* "Gravitational Wave Memory from Gamma Ray Bursts' Jets", at the meeting on GRBs and related topics, Weizmann Institute, Rehovot, Israel, Febuary 2013.


Courses I teach:
* General physics - waves and electricity for Chemistry and Earth's sciences students, Spring 2014, Spring 2013
* Mechanics and special relativity, Winter 2013-2014, Winter 2012-2013, Winter 2011-2012
* Solid State Physics, Spring 2013, Spring 2011
* Electricity, waves and optics - for med. students, Spring 2012
* General physics (2) for pharmacy students, Spring 2012
* General Relativity & Gravitation Winter 2010-2011
* Physics 1 for Pharmacy students, Winter 2010-2011
* Electricity & Magnetism, Spring 2010

I'm also on the Committee of the Junior Staff Union; here's some stuff I've published:
"Extinguishing Fires - in Higher Education", on YNET, 14/1/2011


My Erdős-Bacon number is 9:
Erdős (4): Paul Erdős - Mark Kac - Ted Jacobson - Bruce Allen - Ofek Birnholz
Bacon (5): Kevin Bacon ("X: First Class") Michael Fassbender ("X-Men: Days of Future Past") Patrick Stewart ("Crossover Games") Adva Kimchi ("The Last Shepherd") Boaz Karni ("HaHalalit") Ofek Birnholtz


A winter demonstration of angular momentum Video: Aviv Keren (Philosophy), Music Selection: Shai Wyborski (Mathematics)