Dong Lai was born in 1968 in Ganzhou (Jiangxi), China. He received a B.S. degree in 1988 from University of Science and Technology of China. He came to the US through the T.D.Lee (CUSPEA) program and received Ph.D. in physics from Cornell University in 1994. After three years of postdoctoral fellowship at Caltech (TAPIR), he joined the Cornell Astronomy faculty in 1997, and eventually became a full Professor.
Lai is a theoretical astrophysicist who has worked on a number of different areas, from compact objects to exoplanets. He has made original contributions to the understanding of the physical processes that take place in strong magnetic fields of neutron stars (L01, HL06), such as the effect of QED (vacuum resonance) on radiative transfer in neutron star atmospheres (LH02, LH03, HL03) and x-ray polarization signatures (LH03, VL06, WL09) -- detecting them is a major goal of x-ray polarimeter space missions for the future, and the magnetic effect on the property of neutron star surfaces and interiors (LS91, LS97, ML06, ML07). His theoretical works have also helped constrain and elucidate the physical mechanisms of supernova kicks (LBV95, LQ98, AL99, AL99, LG00, LCC01, WLH06).
Lai has made original contributions to the understanding of hydrodynamical processes in coalescing neutron star binaries: he gave the first complete analytic expression of gravitational wave (GW) phase shift due to static tides and and discovered the related tidal instability (LRS94, LW96, WL00) -- these can be used to constrain the tidal deformability and equation of state of neutron stars using GWs; he studied resonant tides and tidal heating, (L94, HL99, XL17) and magnetic effect (L12). He made the first calculation of the gravitational waveform from young neutron stars undergoing nonlinear bar-mode instability (LS95). Since the detection of GWs by LIGO, he has returned to gravitational wave astronomy and has studied dynamical formation of binary black holes ("tertiary-induced mergers"), examining signatures of spin-orbit misalignments (LL17, LL18, LLW19, SLL21) and several other effects (LLW19, LL21, SLL21).
Lai made an original contribution to accretion disks around magnetic stars, showing that magnetic star - disk interaction can give rise to disk warping and precession (L99), with implications for stellar obliquities in planetary systems (LFL11). He developed the theory of corotational excitation of global oscillations of accretion disks around black holes in an attempt to understand QPOs (LT09, TL09, FL09, FL11) -- while the theory is beautiful (GR really makes the mode grow), he could not be sure this is "the" explanation of QPOs (L13; alas, BH accretion disks are messy...).
In serveal recent papers, Lai has studied accretion processes around binaries (ML16), showing that a comparable-mass binary gains angular momentum via cricumbinary accretion (MML17, MML19, MLKM20) -- a result that may significantly impact supermassive BH mergers and binary star formation.
Lai has studied dynamical tides in compact binary white dwarfs (FL12), heartbeat stars (FL12) and highly eccentric binaries (L97). A recent work elucidates the nature of "chaotic tides" (VL18).
Since 2010, Dong Lai has devoted a large part of his research on exoplanet dynamics and formation. He has studied the formation mechanisms of hot Jupiters (ASL16, MLL16 and VLA19 on high-e migration, TLV19 on secular chaos) and ultra-short-period planets (low-e migration: PL19), and has explored several mechanisms of producing spin-orbit misalignments (LFL11 with magnetic effect, L14 and ZL18 with disk and external companion, AL18 on "teetering stars"). He showed that stellar spin dynamics (often chaotic) driven by migrating planets plays a most important role in determining the stellar obliquities (SAL14) and developed the corresponding theory of "spin chaos due to overlapping resonances" (SL15, SL17). He has also studied the dynamics of circumbinary planets (ML15 predicts planets misaligned with the binary) and distorted disks around binary stars (FL14 on warped disks, ML15 on disk truncation, ZL18 explains polar-aligned disks). He showed that tidal spin-orbit alignment can be efficient in star-planet systems while allowing hot Jupiters to survive (L12). He has also studied viscoelastic tides in giant planets (SL14), the captures of mean-motion resonances of multiplanet systems (XL16, XLM18), mass transfer and magnetic interactions in close-in planet systems (LHv10, L12), as well as the influences of external companions on the multi-planet systems (LP17, LAP18). He has studied new mechanisms of generating planetary obliquities (LL20, LLAP21 from planet collision, SL20 from planet-disk interaction).
On Solar system subjects, Lai suggested "mode mixing" ("avoided crossing") mechansim to explain the small frequency splitting of Saturn's oscillation modes (FLS14), and calculated Sun's obliquity generated by putative Planet 9 (L16) and Jupiter's dynamical Love number (L21) -- He found that not being formally trained in celestial mechanics sometimes has an advantage, allowing him to do some calculations in a simpler way than "professionals".
Dong Lai enjoys working with students in small groups, and most of his research papers have been written with students. He is fortunate to have worked with some wonderful students over the years.
Some Representative papers of Dong Lai
CV , publications (to be updated occasionally); see astro-ph arXiv for recent papers.
Back to Dong Lai's Homepage and Research Homepage .