Research
A sample of Martin’s research publications, which total over 500, and related projects.
A list of research publications can be found here.
Follow @LordMartinRees for updates on Martin’s latest research.
Existential Risk
Classifying Global Catastrophic Risks
A novel classification framework for severe global catastrophic risk scenarios. Extending beyond existing work that identifies individual risk scenarios, the authors propose analysing global catastrophic risks along three dimensions: the critical systems affected, global spread mechanisms, and prevention and mitigation failures. A paper by Avin et al. (2018) in Futures, 102, 20-26.
All-Party Parliamentary Group For Future Generations
The APPG for Future Generations raises awareness of long-term issues, explore ways to internalise longer-term considerations and concern for future generations into decision-making processes, and create space for cross-party dialogue on combating short-termism in policy-making.
Global Catastrophic Risks 2018
An analysis of the major threats against humanity based on the latest scientific research, and contributions from academic experts all over the world. The report details the major global risks, and provides a summary of actions being taken to manage them. It aims to create a deeper understanding of global catastrophic risk, and thereby to spark a discussion of how the management of such risks can be developed and improved. A report by the Global Challenges Foundation (2018).
Black Sky Infrastructure and Societal Resilience Workshop Report
Black Sky Hazards should be high on decision makers’ agendas. Our power grids are becoming ever more crucial. Cities will be paralyzed without electricity, and the lights going out will be the least of the consequences… everything else that urban life depends on is vulnerable to breakdowns, errors, or even intentional sabotage of the system. A report summarising the Workshop organised by the EIS Council with CSER and ICIF, hosted by The Royal Society on 16th Jan 2017.
A Global Apollo Programme To Combat Climate Change
A call for a global science and economics research programme to make carbon-free baseload electricity less costly than electricity from coal by 2025. Followed in 2015 by two initiatives from Bill Gates: Mission Innovation (20 countries committed to double their clean energy R&D budgets over the five years to 2020) and Breakthrough Energy Coalition (28 high net worth individuals, who collectively pledged to invest $1bn in clean energy). A report by King et. al. (2015).
In a media landscape saturated with sensational science stories and "end of the world" Hollywood productions, it may be hard to persuade the wide public that real catastrophes could arise as unexpectedly as the 2008 financial crisis, and have a far greater impact. An editorial by Rees (2013) in Science, 339 (6124), 1123.
Astronomy
The Swift Gamma-ray Burst Mission
The Swift mission … is a multiwavelength observatory for GRB astronomy. It is a first-of-its-kind autonomous rapid-slewing satellite for transient astronomy and pioneers the way for future rapid-reaction and multiwavelength missions…. The objectives are to (1) determine the origin of GRBs, (2) classify GRBs and search for new types, (3) study the interaction of the ultrarelativistic outflows of GRBs with their surrounding medium, and (4) use GRBs to study the early universe out to z > 10…. The mission is being developed by a NASA-led international collaboration…. A paper by Gehrels et al. (2004) in The Astrophysical Journal, 611(2).
The formation of massive black holes may pre- cede the epoch that characterises the peak of galaxy for- mation, as characterized by the star formation history in luminous galaxies. Hence protogalactic star formation may be profoundly affected by quasar-like nuclei and their associated extensive energetic outflows. We derive a relation between the mass of the central supermassive black hole and that of the galaxy spheroidal component, and comment on other implications for galaxy formation scenarios. A paper by Silk & Rees (1998) in Astronomy and Astrophysics, 331(2).
Theory of Extragalactic Radio Sources
Powerful extragalactic radio sources comprise two extended regions containing magnetic field and synchrotron-emitting relativistic electrons, each linked by a jet to a central compact radio source located in the nucleus of the associated galaxy. These jets are collimated streams of plasma that emerge from the nucleus in opposite directions, along which flow mass, momentum, energy, and magnetic flux. Methods of using the observations diagnostically to infer the pressures, densities, and fluid velocities within jets are explained…. A paper by Begelman, Blandford & Rees (1984) in Reviews of Modern Physics, 56(2).
Massive Black Hole Binaries in Active Galactic Nuclei
Most theoretical discussions of active galactic nuclei (including quasars) attribute their energy production either to an accreting black hole or to a precursor stage - for instance a dense star cluster or a supermassive star - whose inevitable end point is a massive black hole. We explore here the possibility that some active nuclei may contain two massive black holes in orbit about each other. This hypothesis suggests a new interpretation for the observed bending and apparent precession of radio jets emerging from these objects…. A paper by Begelman, Blandford & Rees (1980) in Nature, 287(5780).
X-ray fluorescence from the Inner Disc in Cygnus X-I
The quasi-blackbody plus power-law spectra of many accreting black-hole sources suggests that relatively cold matter is surrounded by hard X-ray emitting plasma. Fluorescent iron lines are produced by X-irradiation of the cold gas. The shape and variability of these lines can be used to map the innermost regions around the black hole…. We show here that the broad, iron emission line found in Cyg X-1 by Barr, White & Page is well modelled by fluorescent emission from the inner parts of an accretion disc inclined at ∼ 30 degrees.… A paper by Fabian et al. (1989) in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 238(3).
Formation of Galaxies and Large-scale Structure with Cold Dark Matter
The dark matter that appears to be gravitationally dominant on all scales larger than galactic cores may consist of axions, stable photinos, or other collisionless particles whose velocity dispersion in the early Universe is so small that fluctuations of galactic size or larger are not damped by free streaming. An attractive feature of this cold dark matter hypothesis is its considerable predictive power: the post-recombination fluctuation spectrum is calculable, and it in turn governs the formation of galaxies and clusters…. A paper by Begelman, et al. (1984) in Nature, 311(5986).
