Piotr Życki

Piotr Życki's photo

Degree: Professor

Position: Professor

Functions: Chairman Of The Scientific Council


Division: Astrophysics II (Warsaw)

ORCID: 0000-0002-7596-4221

Office: 124

Phone: +48 223296124

Personal website: http://users.camk.edu.pl/ptz


E-mail: ptz@camk.edu.pl

Piotr Życki is a professor at the Nicolaus Copernicus Astronomical Center (CAMK) in Warsaw.


He earned his Ph.D. at CAMK in 1995, after which he spent three years (1996-1998) at the Department of Physics at Durham University (UK), where he worked with Prof. Chris Done. He received his habilitation in 2002 and was awarded a title of professor in 2008.


He was deputy director of CAMK from 2006 to 2014, and its director from 2014 to 2022.


Prof. Życki participates in the Advanced Telescope for High-ENergy Astrophysics (ATHENA) project and, together with Prof. Agata Różanska, is a member of the Consortium Board of the Wide Field Imager (WFI) detector consortium.


His recent research concentrated on the problem of X-ray quasi-periodic oscillations often observed in X-ray binaries and active galactic nuclei (AGN).


Beside astrophysics as a science Prof. Życki is also interested in astronomical education. Since 1983 he has been occasionally giving talks for pupils and students, as well as teachers on both astronomical topics and how to present them to students. From 1983 to 1995, he was an active member of the Almukantarat astronomy club, which evolved from even earlier initiatives aimed at helping talented students to gain deeper knowledge in many branches of science, arts and technology.


The link to his publications included by the service NASA ADS can be found here.


Research interests
  • accretion processes on compact objects (black holes, neutron stars),
  • X-rays from AGN and X-ray binary systems - analysis of spectra and time variation.

Grants / Scientific projects
Prof. Życki led the following projects:
  • "Comparison of high energy spectra and time variability of Active Galactic Nuclei and black hole binaries, and their consequences for accretion models" (2012-2015). Funding information: OPUS project, NCN (2011/03/B/ST9/03459),
  • "Accretion onto compact objects – comparison of white dwarfs, neutron stars and black holes" (2007-2010). Funding information: project funded by Ministry of Science and Higher Education (N203 011 32/1518).
In addition, Prof. Życki participated in the project:
  • "Probing Strong Gravity by Black Holes Across the Range of Masses (Strong Gravity)". (2013-2017). Funding information: European grant within the EU FP7 program (FP7-SPACE-2012-312789).