Bomford Prize IAG Birmingham 1999 (Veronique Dehant)

IAG Birmingham 1999 Bomford Prize was awarded to Veronique Dehant, of Royal Observatory of Belgium for his work on nutation - observation and theory.

Due to the gravitational attraction of the Moon and the Sun and also the planets, the Earth deforms and undergoes polar motion, variations of the length-of-day and nutations. The amplitudes of these induced deformations and forced motions are additionally modified by the ocean and the atmosphere. These nutations can be observed by using Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) and can be computed from an Earth model involving physical parameters for the Earth’s interior. The comparison of the observation and the theory leads to a better understanding of the physics of the Earth’s interior, which in turn, allows to readjust the model.

Dehant's work in the nutation field can be described by different steps improving the nutation models and starting from the adopted nutation model by the IAU and the IUGG based on the rigid Earth nutation series of Kinoshita (1977) convolved with the model of Wahr’s (1981) nutation for an ellipsoidal rotating Earth, primarily in hydrostatic equilibrium, with an elastic inner core, a liquid core and an elastic mantle.

Dehant introduced mantle inelasticity in the input model. This work was completed for his PhD in 1986 under supervision of P Melchior.

Dehant V., 1986, "Intégration des équations aux déformations d'une Terre elliptique, inélastique, en rotation uniforme et à noyau liquide.", Ph.D. Thesis, Université catholique de Louvain, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium, in French, 298 pp.

Veronique Dehant (read cv - here)
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