Physics Department Faculty:
Andrew Strominger
Professor of PhysicsPhD 1982, MIT
The fundamental laws of nature, as we currently understand
them, are both incomplete and contradictory. Unsolved
problems concerning these laws include the incompatibility
of quantum mechanics and Einstein’s theory of gravity,
the origin of the universe, and the origin of the masses
of the elementary particles. Professor Strominger’s
research has concerned various aspects of these problems.
The emergence of string theory as the most promising
approach to these problems began with Strominger’s
1985 co-discovery of so-called Calabi-Yau compactifications1.
This construction demonstrated that string theory not
only reconciles quantum mechanics and gravity, but
can also contain within it electrons, protons, photons
and all the other observed particles and forces, and
hence is a viable candidate for a complete unified
theory of nature. In 1991 Strominger co-discovered
the brane solutions of string theory, which have played
a crucial role in unraveling the beautiful mathematical
structure and duality symmetries of the theory2.
The branes were eventually used by Strominger and collaborators
to give a microscopic explanation of how black holes
are able to store information3; finally
resolving a deep paradox uncovered by Hawking and Bekenstein
a quarter century earlier. He and coworkers also used
the branes to derive new relations in algebraic geometry,
equating the moduli space of a brane in a Calabi-Yau
space to the mirror Calabi-Yau4. Preliminary
attempts have been made to apply these insights to
cosmology5. Current research (e.g., no.6)
continues attempts to better understand the fundamental
laws of nature.
Further description of Strominger’s research can be
found in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andy_Strominger and
links therein.
A public lecture by Professor Strominger on "String
Theory, Black Holes and the Fundamental Laws of Nature"
can be found at Harvard@Home.
- "Vacuum Configurations for Superstrings," P. Candelas, G. Horowitz, A. Strominger, E. Witten, Nucl. Phys. B 258:46-74, 1985.
- "Black strings and P-branes," G. Horowitz, A. Strominger, Nucl. Phys. B 360:197-209, 1991.
- "Microscopic origin of the Bekenstein-Hawking entropy," A. Strominger, C. Vafa, Phys. Lett. B 379:99-104, 1996. hep-th/9601029.
- "Mirror symmetry is T duality," A. Strominger, S.T. Yau, E. Zaslow, Nucl. Phys. B 479:243-259, 1996. hep-th/9606040.
- "The dS / CFT correspondence," A. Strominger, JHEP 0110:034, 2001. hep-th/0106113.
- "From AdS(3)/CFT(2) to black holes/topological strings," D. Gaiotto, A. Strominger, X. Yin, 2006. hep-th/0602046.