Péter István Mészáros (born 15 July 1943) is a Hungarian-Argentine theoretical astrophysicist, best known for the Mészáros effectMészáros, P., "The behaviour of point masses in an expanding cosmological substratum", Astronomy and Astrophysics, vol. 37, no. 2, Dec. 1974, p. 225-228 in cosmology and for his work on gamma-ray bursts.Mészáros, P. and Rees, M.J., "Optical and Long-Wavelength Afterglow from Gamma-Ray Bursts", The Astrophysical Journal, Volume 476, Issue 1, Feb. 1997, pp. 232-237Rees, M.J. and Mészáros, P., "Unsteady Outflow Models for Cosmological Gamma-Ray Bursts", Astrophysical Journal Letters v.430, August 1994, pp.L93-L96
Life Péter Mészáros was born in 1943 in Budapest, Hungary, and grew up in Liège, Belgium and Buenos Aires, Argentina, where he did his undergraduate studies. He received his PhD in 1972 from the University of California, Berkeley, and after postdoctoral fellowships at Princeton University and Cambridge University he became a staff scientist at the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics. He joined the Pennsylvania State University in 1983, where for ten years he was Head of the department of Astronomy and Astrophysics and Professor of Physics, being named Eberly Chair Professor.https://news.psu.edu/story/207785/2005/10/14/meszaros-named-holder-eberly-family-chair-astronomy-astrophysics Eberly Chair Professor
Career Mészáros is widely known in the astrophysical community for his papers on the relativistic fireball shock model of gamma ray bursts and their afterglows, laying down the framework for the interplay between the jet dynamics and the external as well as internal shocks which determine the observational aspects of these sources. He is also known in the cosmological community for the Mészáros effect, or Mészáros equation, which quantifies the influence of dark matter in the evolution of the initial perturbations leading to large scale structures in cosmology. He was active in the study of the interstellar medium as well as the astrophysics of black holes, and contributed broadly to the study of magnetized neutron stars, e.g., pp.1-531 He served as the science-theory lead of the NASA Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory space mission. His current interests include calculations of theoretical models of cosmic high energy cosmic ray and neutrino sources, e.g.,Rachen, J.P. and Mészáros, P., "Photohadronic neutrinos from transients in astrophysical sources", Physical Review D, Volume 58, Issue 12, 15 December 1998, id. 123005Murase, K., Kimura, S.S. and Mészáros, P., "Hidden Cores of Active Galactic Nuclei as the Origin of Medium-Energy Neutrinos: Critical Tests with the MeV Gamma-Ray Connection", Physical Review Letters, Volume 125, Issue 1, June 2020, id. 011101 as well as exploring various aspects of multimessenger astrophysics.
Positions Mészáros is a Member of the US National Academy of Sciences (2021),, entry in member directory: Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2010), Member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (2010), Fellow of the American Physical Society (1996) and Fellow of the American Astronomical Society (2019). He is the Eberly Chair Professor Emeritus of Astronomy and Astrophysics and of Physics at Penn State, and Director Emeritus of its Center for Multimessenger Astrophysics.http://sites.psu.edu/cmma Penn State Center for Multimessenger Astrophysics He is currently a member of the Space Studies Board of the National Academy of Sciences.https://www.nationalacademies.org/ssb/space-studies-board
Awards 2020 - Legacy Fellow, American Astronomical Society in 2020. 2013 – Einstein Professorship of the Chinese Academy of Sciences 2009 – Thomson Reuters scienceWATCH: Highest ranked in citations on gamma-ray bursts during 1999–2009 2007 – Bruno Rossi Prize (shared with Neil Gehrels and the Swift team) 2000 – Bruno Rossi Prize (shared with B. Paczynski and M.J. Rees) 1999 – Fellow, John Simon Guggenheim Foundation 1996 - Fellow, American Physical Society 1976 – First Prize, Gravity Research Foundation (shared with P. Kafka)
Personal life Mészáros is married to Deborah Mészáros, and they have an adult son, Andor Mészáros.
References
External links Homepage: Péter Mészáros at Pennsylvania State University C.V. : Péter Mészáros Publications: Péter Mészáros ADS citations: Péter Mészáros