Andrew Fabian

Winner of the Kavli Prize for Astrophysics in 2020.

Andrew Fabian, one of the most prolific and influential astronomers of our time, has been a leading figure in several major research areas in X-ray astronomy. On large scales, he played a vital role in revealing the mystery of and solution to the prodigious heating and cooling mechanisms operating on inter-galactic gas in clusters of galaxies. On small scales, he predicted and co-discovered high velocity X-ray spectral emission from around black holes, which allowed Fabian and his collaborators to develop a powerful method for measuring black-hole spins. These very spinning black holes may provide the energy to heat the inter-galactic gas and affect the evolution of the constituent galaxies. Fabian’s breadth of knowledge and insights on vastly different scales have provided key physical understanding of how those disparate phenomena are interconnected.