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Vera Lvovna Khokhlova 1927 - 2003

Vera Lvovna Khokhlova 1927 - 2003. Vera Lvovna Khokhlova

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Vera Lvovna Khokhlova 1927 - 2003

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  1. Vera Lvovna Khokhlova1927 - 2003

  2. Vera Lvovna Khokhlova Well known and admirable astrophysicist unexpectedly died September 24th, 2003. She was 77 year old. Vera Khokhlova was born in Moscow region on July 25th, 1927. Graduating from the Moscow State University in 1950 she was one of the lucky students who had gotten a chance to start professional life in a new, still under construction, observatory in Crimea. Those were very joyful and productive years in Vera Khokhlova's life. She met new people, made new friends many of whom remained in her life for many decades. Her first teacher and mentor was Academician S. B. Severny and very soon she made her PhD thesis on the analysis of the active solar regions. Later her family situation changed and Vera Khokhlova had to make a very tough decision to move back to Moscow in 1961. Her new job was at the Astronomical Council (now Institute of Astronomy RAS) under the leadership of Academician Mustel. Her new professional interest became Magnetic Ap stars. Perhaps this choice was connected with her previous scientific activity: Ap stars and active solar regions have the one common feature of the magnetic field. This was time when an idea about spotty surface structure of Ap stars had just appeared, and Vera Lvovna began to work actively in this direction.

  3. First, it was an application of Deutsch's harmonic analysis of the average spectral line characteristics: equivalent widths and radial velocity variations. Very soon she developed her own method of stellar surface modelling based on these averaged characteristics. It was the time of her first contacts with French (C. Megessier) and Canadian (W. Wehlau) astrophysicists working in the same field. Significant improvements of the accuracy and resolution of spectroscopic observations gave her an idea to apply solar methods to stellar spectra. She saw a possibility to extract more precise information from spectral lines using line profile variations in study of the surface structure of Ap stars. She proposed a formalism of reconstruction of stellar surface structures from line profile variations. But Vera Lvovna Khokhlova understood clearly that formulation of an Inverse problem is only a part of the job, new mathematical approaches were needed to solve it. Vera Lvovna was always very persistent and successful in organizing scientific cooperation and she approached mathematicians at the Moscow State University.

  4. This very fruitful cooperation resulted in an appearance of a new method of stellar surface structure investigation, known now as Doppler Imaging technique, and widely used with different modifications today. This work made Vera Lvovna one of the leaders in Ap star spectroscopy. We mentioned above the organizational capabilities of Vera Lvovna. It was another of her very important and very productive activities. In 70th she organized scientific cooperation with the group of Werner Schoneich from former DDR, and this cooperation gave birth to Subcommission No. 4 'Magnetic Stars' in multi-side cooperation between Academies of the former socialist countries. For many years Vera Lvovna chaired this Subcommission. We would like to add that 'Magnetic Stars' is the only subcommission which survived after the destruction of the socialistic system and prospers at present days under the leadership of the astronomers from Special Astrophysical Observatory in Zelenchuk. As before we have International conferences every 3 years. Vera Lvovna gave a lot of her time and energy working with scientists from different republics of the former Soviet Union. She was a teacher and guru for many young astronomers in Shemakha Observatory. She loved this place and spent a lot of time there.

  5. Her first Ap results were also obtained on 2 m telescope in Shemakha. Vera Lvovna was a very devoted person and she taught us to work without reservations and hesitations. Astrophysics was her love and life, and everything else was dependent on it. She practically lived in her office at work, and at the beginning, we, her students and colleagues, did not understand it; then we started following the model. She was always on top of all major events and news in her area. She never missed a current Astronomy magazine, however she felt almost ashamed that she did not have time for reading novels or going to the movies. We still can't imagine how she could find time for her kids and her mother. Vera Lvovna was working till the very end. She planned to take part on September 'Magnetic field' meeting at SAO, and only her decease prevented it. Being in a hospital, during the two last weeks of her life she tried to read PhD thesis of her student ...

  6. We would like to finish with the words of Margherita Hack: 'I am very sorry to know about the death of Vera Khokhlova. She was an example of very active and enthusiastic scientist. I was very much impressed with her method to detect the position of the spots on the surface of magnetic stars, a very informative method that I think, she was the first person to propose. It is a great loss for astronomy, and a great loss for her friends.‘N. Polosukhina, T. Ryabchikova, A. Krivosheina

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