Zeldovich medal for Ildar Khabibullin

During the COSPAR 2020 Scientific Assembly, MPA postdoc Ildar Khabibullin received the Yakov Zeldovich Medal for his “major contribution to deciphering the historical high energy activity of the supermassive black hole Sgr A* in the center of our Galaxy and insights into the physical processes of galactic collapsed objects”. This award, jointly established by the Russian Academy of Sciences and the Committee on Space Research (COSPAR), recognises young scientists for excellence and achievements facilitated with the help of space observatories.

The Committee on Space Research (COSPAR) with the Headquarter in Paris, France was established in 1958 to promote scientific research in space on an international level. It has eight Commissions, which cover topics ranging from Astrobiology to Fundamental Physics in space. Every second year, COSPAR calls for a General Assembly, which attracts some 5000 scientists from all over the world. Each Cospar Commission selects one young scientist as a recipient of the Yakov Zeldovich medal. MPA postdoc Ildar Khabibullin received the medal from the Commission E (Research in Astrophysics from Space).

After getting his PhD in 2015 from the Space Research Institute (IKI) in Moscow, Ildar Khabibullin joined the High Energy Group at MPA as a postdoc in 2016. Since then he has been working on a broad variety of high energy astrophysical phenomena in close collaboration with Rashid Sunyaev and Eugene Churazov,  specializing in theoretical modeling, numerical simulations, and analysis of the observational data from space-based X-ray observatories.

Ildar Khabibullin contributed crucially to the development and application of the novel techniques aimed at exploration of the Sgr A* X-ray echoes, detection of transient X-ray sources, characterization of individual accreting objects and their populations in nearby galaxies, using the data of all major operating X-ray observatories. Along with the colleagues at the High Energy group, he elaborated on scientific cases for the future X-ray, CMB, and gamma-ray space observatories. Currently, Ildar is an active member of the Russian SRG/eROSITA consortium and the IXPE Science Team.