Vladimir Braginsky

Vladimir Borisovich Braginsky (3 August 1931 – 29 March 2016) was a Russian experimental and theoretical physicist and a corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS), and foreign member of the US National Academy of Sciences.

Beginning in 1974, together with colleagues in the department, he discovered the existence of a fundamental loss mechanism for electromagnetic waves in perfect crystals, dielectrics, thereby creating dielectric microwave resonators in sapphire with Q > 109. In 1989, he suggested high-Q optical microcavities with whispering gallery modes.

Together with colleagues, he developed a number of key elements for the detectors of gravitational waves (both the bars and the laser interferometers), in particular the suspension of the proof mass with a relaxation time greater than 5 years.

Braginsky and colleagues also predicted the existence of several new physical effects: the spin-quadrupole gravitational effect (1980), the friction generated by zero-point fluctuations of the vacuum (1991), and fundamental thermoelastic and thermorefractive fluctuations (1999, 2000), and parametric instabilities in high-Q opto-mechanical resonators (2001).

Since 1993, the research group of Braginsky has been working within the international research project called LIGO.

Braginsky has also produced a large cadre of students: of the 34 PhD candidates prepared, 12 have achieved the Doctor of Science degree, including six professors working in various departments of the Faculty of Physics at Moscow State University. Some of his other former students successfully work in institutes of the RAS and abroad.