Qu Qinyue

Qu Qinyue (simplified Chinese: 曲钦岳; traditional Chinese: 曲欽岳; pinyin: Qū Qīnyuè; Wade–Giles: Ch'ü Ch'in-yüeh) (born 21 May 1935) is a Chinese astrophysicist and writer. He is a professor and former president of Nanjing University. He is a pioneer of high-energy astrophysics in China, and his research mainly focuses on pulsars, neutron stars, X-ray sources, γ-ray sources and quasars. In 1980 he was elected a member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.^[1]

Life and career[]

Qu Qinyue was born in Mouping, Shandong. His father was a merchant and his mother a housewife. He received his early education at Yantai Jinglun Street Primary School. Later he attended Yantai No. 1 Middle School, Zhifu Middle School and Qingdao Jiao'ao Middle School, finally graduating from Lixian Middle School. He then finished his senior high school study at Qingdao No. 1 High School.^[2]: 301

In 1953 he entered Nanjing University, where he studied astronomy, mathematics and physics. His teachers included astronomer .^[3] In his sophomore year he proposed a wall newspaper named Academic Garden, where he and his classmates posted their ideas for learning. He was also a good athlete, in 1956 his team broke the school record in the 4 × 100 m relay.^[4]

After graduating in 1957, Qu became a teaching assistant of Nanjing University. In 1958 he took part in the development of China's first solar tower, and corrected an error in the design of image rotation mirror by a Soviet scholar. During the Cultural Revolution, he was sent to work at a coal mine, and then at Liyang Farm.^[4] He was unable to return to the university until 1971. After 1973, astrophysics research at Nanjing University was revived. Some of Qu's most important work was done in the late 1970s.^[4]

Qu became a full professor in 1978, and a member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 1980. In 1982 he became a member of Ministry of Education Science Textbook Compilation Committee and director of its Department of Astronomy.^[2]: 302 From 1984 to 1997, he served as President of Nanjing University. In August 1990 he and five other university presidents (including Lu Yongxiang) cosigned a letter to the premier Li Peng, requesting more support on universities during the 8th five-year plan. The academic ranking of Nanjing University rose rapidly under his leadership.^[5] In 1992 he was elected President of the , and in 1993 a member of TWAS.^[4]

Work[]

In 1976, Qu and his colleagues developed statistical curves on pulsar energy loss rates, and suggested that is a pulsar.^[6] On 5 March 1979, an intense burst of hard X-rays and γ-rays was recorded, and Qu's team analyzed its light curve and energy spectrum. They created a model for a neutron star binary system, and provided detailed explanation of the observational data using the mechanism of Bremsstrahlung and Kruskal-Schwarzschild instability. Their work was reported at the 17th International Cosmic Ray Conference held in 1981.^[7]

About the same time, Fang Lizhi, Qu Qinyue, Wang Zhenru and others proposed a theory that abnormal neutron stars, in which neutrons are in a state that their effective mass become zero or nearly zero, are a form of stars during their final period. They studied the stability of these stars, and suggested their maximum mass is approximately 4 solar masses, about twice the Tolman–Oppenheimer–Volkoff limit. Their results demonstrated that meta-stable compact stars can exist.^[8]

During the 1990s, Qu's team created new models to explain the relation between X-ray luminosity of plerionic supernova remnants and rotational energy loss rates of their central supernova. They interpreted the special shapes of some supernova remnants, such as . SS 433 was another subject they studied, calculating physical characteristics and parameters of its infrared knots. His team also discussed a fourteenth century supernova's relationship with the γ-ray source . In 1993, Qu co-authored a textbook titled Stellar Atmosphere Physics (《恒星大气物理》) with Wang Zhenru.^[9]

References[]