During graduate work at Arecibo, Lovelace discovered the period and location of the Crab Nebula pulsar. After research associate appointments at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory and the Laboratory of Plasma Studies, he joined the Cornell faculty  in 1972. He was elected a Guggenheim Fellow in 1999 and an Overseas Fellow at Churchill College in 1994. He is a Fellow of  the American Physical Society.  He is also an Associate Editor of Journal Physics of Plasmas.

 

Research Interests 

 

Over the past several years, Richard Lovelace's theoretical and computer simulation research has been directed to different problems involving astrophysical flows and plasmas. Most of this work has been done in the framework of our US-Russia collaboration on plasma astrophysics. The flows are observed in the accretion disks and associated jets and winds of rotating neutron stars and black holes in binary systems, around massive black holes in the nuclei of active galaxies and quasars, and around newly forming stars. There is a wealth of new observational data, including radio, infra red, optical, X-ray, and gamma ray measurements, on accretion disks and collimated, high-velocity jets. Magnetic fields have a crucial role in driving the outflows and in determining the evolution of the disks and the central stars. On a large scale, active galactic nuclei are observed to be the sources of powerful, collimated, relativistic jets.

Recent results of our research on plasma phenomena in accretion flows include: (1) three-dimensional magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) simulations of funnel flows in disk accretion to a rotating star with a misaligned dipole magnetic fields; (2) axisymmetric MHD simulations of Bondi accretion to a rotating star with an aligned dipole magnetic fields in the propeller regime; (3) axisymmetric simulations of the MHD origin of nonrelativistic jets from Keplerian accretion disks; (4) theory of the formation of relativistic Poynting jets from accretion disks around a Kerr black holes; (5) theory of relativistic acceleration of leptons in collisionless magnetic reconnection; and (6) theory of the coherent synchrotron radiation instability of rotating relativistic electron layers.

United States Patent 6,639,403 Temnykh , et al. October 28, 2003:  System and method for sensing magnetic fields based on movement

Selected Publications

• Advection of Magnetic Fields in Accretion Disks: Not So Difficult After All, D.M. Rothstein & R. V. E. Lovelace , 2008, ApJ, 677, 1221-1232
• Dynamics of Kicked and Accelerated Massive Black Holes in Galaxies, D. A. Kornreich & R. V. E. Lovelace, 2008, ApJ, 681, 104-112
• MHD Simulations of Disk-Star Interaction, M. M. Romanova,  M. Long, A. K. Kulkarni, R. Kurosawa, G. V. Ustyugova, A. V. Koldoba,  & R. V. E. Lovelace, 2008, in Proc. of IAU Symposioum, v. 243
• Oscillations of MHD Shock Waves on the Surfaces of T Tauri Stars, A. V. Koldoba, G. V. Ustyugova, M. M. Romanova & R. V. E. Lovelace, 2008, MNRAS, 388, 357-366
• Planet migration and disc destruction due to magneto-certrifugal stellar winds, RVE Lovelace, M. M., & Banrnard, A. W. 2008, MNRAS, 389, 1223-1239
• Three-dimensional Simulations of Accretion to Stars with Complex Magnetic Fields,  M. Long, M. M. Romanova & R. V. E. Lovelace, 2008, MNRAS, 386, 1274-1284
• Unstable Disk Accretron onto Magnetized Stars:  First Global Three-Dimensional Magneto Hydrodynamic Situlatious, M. M. Romanova, A. K. Kulkarni & R. V. E. Lovelace, 2008, ApJ, 673-L171
• Large Scale B-Field in Stationary Accretion Disks, G. S. Bisnovatyi-Kogan & R. V. E. Lovelace, 2007, ApJ, 677, L167
• Three Disk Oscillation Modes of Rotating Magnetized Neutron Stars, M. M. Romanova & R. V. E. Lovelace, 2007, ApJ, 670, L13

  "Theory and Analysis of Interplanetary Scintillations" thesis by R.V.E. Lovelace (1970): 

 

Part I
Part II
Part III
Part IV