By Rebecca Wyatt, OU Web Writer

As a post doctoral researcher at the University of California Santa Barbara in the late 1980s, David Garfinkle, now a professor of physics at OU, teamed up with two other researchers to look at black holes and string theories. Together the three researchers published “Charged Black-Holes in String Theory,” which now has been cited more than 500 times in scientific literature.

Stanford University lists papers and how many citations they receive, and Garfinkle has been steadily watching his numbers grow over the years. At 500 citations, the paper has received “renowned paper” status.

“The last few citations came in the last few months so it’s still being used,” Garfinkle said.

Garfinkle’s research examined what the String Theory thought of black holes, which is the result of a star imploding. The String Theory is used to explain nature at a fundamental level.

The paper was published in May 1991 in Physical Review D, a journal of the American Physical Society, a leading professional journal in physics. Being cited more than 500 times in 15 years equates to nearly 33 citations per year.

“Apparently, a lot of people found our work useful,” Garfinkle said. “The research is pretty useful for people who use String Theory, but there are a lot of people out there using String Theory so you get a lot of citation.”