Vasco Guerra
Vasco Guerra | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | December 12, 1968 Torres Vedras, Portugal |
| Nationality | Portuguese |
| Alma mater | Instituto Superior Técnico (Universidade Técnica de Lisboa) |
| Known for | Modelling of low-temperature molecular plasmas; foundations of special relativity |
| Awards | William Crookes Plasma Prize (2016) |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Physics; plasma physics |
| Institutions | Instituto Superior Técnico (IST), Lisbon; Instituto de Plasmas e Fusão Nuclear (IPFN) |
| Thesis | Kinetic Modelling of Glow Discharges in Molecular Gases: the Mixture N2-O2 |
Vasco António Dinis Leitão Guerra (born 12 December 1968) is a Portuguese physicist and professor at the Instituto Superior Técnico (IST) in Lisbon. His main research concerns the modelling of the non-equilibrium kinetics of low-temperature molecular plasmas. He is also known, together with Rodrigo de Abreu, for a series of works on the foundations of special relativity that examine the theory without relying on Einstein's second postulate.
Biography
Guerra was born on 12 December 1968 in Torres Vedras, about 50 km north of Lisbon. He graduated in Engineering Physics at the Instituto Superior Técnico in 1991, received a Master of Science degree in physics from the Universidade Técnica de Lisboa (IST) in 1994, and completed his PhD in physics at the same institution in 1998 with a thesis on plasma physics entitled Kinetic Modelling of Glow Discharges in Molecular Gases: the Mixture N2-O2.
He began teaching at the Department of Mathematics of IST in 1991 and moved to the Department of Physics in 1993, where he was appointed Assistant Professor (Professor Auxiliar) in 1998 and later Associate Professor. He is a member of the Plasma Physics group at IST and is affiliated with the Instituto de Plasmas e Fusão Nuclear (IPFN), where he leads the modelling and simulation activities of the N-PRiME group.
Research
Guerra's principal research field is the physics of low-temperature molecular plasmas. He is known for the self-consistent kinetic modelling of nitrogen, oxygen, N2–O2 and Ar–O2 discharges and post-discharges, including the coupling between the electron, vibrational, chemical and ion kinetics. His work spans gas-phase and plasma–surface interactions, with applications ranging from atmospheric-entry plasmas to CO2 conversion and plasma-assisted chemistry.
Foundations of special relativity
In collaboration with Rodrigo de Abreu, Guerra has published a series of papers and a book addressing the conceptual foundations of special relativity. This work notes that the Michelson–Morley experiment establishes only the constancy of the two-way (round-trip) speed of light, not its one-way value, and explores the consequences of assuming a single frame in which the one-way speed of light is isotropic and equal to c. On this basis the authors argue that special relativity is compatible with the existence of a privileged reference frame, which they term "Einstein's frame", while remaining consistent with the theory's experimental predictions.
Honors
- 2016 – William Crookes Plasma Prize, co-sponsored by the European Physical Society and IOP Publishing, awarded for outstanding contributions to the modelling of molecular low-temperature plasmas.
Abstracts
- 2009 - "Comment on A One-way Speed of Light Experiment" (Read in full)
- 2008 - "The conceptualization of time and the constancy of the speed of light" (Read in full)
- 2006 - "[[Special Relativity in Absolute Space:
from a contradiction in terms to an obviousness]]" (Read in full)
- 2005 - "[[Is the assumption of a special system of reference
consistent with Special Relativity?]]" (Read in full)
Books
- 2005 - "Relativity: Einstein's Lost Frame" (Read in full)