Ashoke Sen is an Indian theoretical physicist who is widely known for his unmatched work in string theory. He has been awarded many honors for his work including the Fundamental Prize in Physics in 2012.
Sen is also a professor at the Harish-Chandra Research Institute, Allahabad. Besides, he’s also a distinguished professor at the Korea Institute for Advanced Study. Ashoke Sen’s prime area of work is string theory, which is a theoretical framework where point-like particles of particle physics are replaced by a one-dimensional object known as strings. It is basically a theory of quantum gravity. Let’s take a look at his inspiration behind this work.
Past life and education
Ashoke Sent ok birth on July 15, 1956, in Kolkata. He is the eldest son of a former professor of physics at the Scottish Church College Anil Kumar Sen. His mother Gouri Sen was a homemaker. Sen pursued his schooling in the same city from Sailendra Sircar Vidyalaya. He completed his Bachelor of Science degree from the Presidency College in 1975, which is affiliated with the University of Calcutta.
Ashoke later received his master’s degree from IIT Kanpur. As an undergraduate, Sen was highly inspired by the work and teaching of Amal Kumar Raychaudhuri. Sen finished his doctoral work in physics at Stony Brook University.
Besides, he is an honorary fellow in the National Institute of Science Education and Research (NISER), Bhubaneswar, India. Not just that, Sen is also a Morningstar Visiting professor at MIT. He is among the first recipients of the Fundamental Physics Prize.
Ashoke Sen’s work on string theory
String theory theorizes how strings move through space and come in contact with each other. On distance scales bigger than the string scale, a string is just a normal particle, with its mass, charge alongside other aspects determined by the vibrational state of the string. In this theory, one of the several vibrational states of the string matches with the graviton, a quantum mechanical particle that packs gravitational force.
Ashoke Sen has made several field-changing contributions to string theory, including his landmark paper on strong-weak coupling duality. This paper altered the course of research in the field. He also started studying unstable D-branes and made the well-known Sen conjecture about open string tachyon condensation. Sen has also co-authored several major papers on string field theory.
Honors and recent work
In the year 1998, Ashoke Sen won the fellowship of the Royal Society after he was nominated by the theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking. His contributions include the entropy function formalism for external black holes and how it applies to attractors.
Ashoke Sen’s recent major works are the attractor mechanism and the precision counting of microstates of black holes. Sen joined the National Institute of Science Education and Research (NISER) as an honorary professor in the School of Physical Sciences. Last year, Ashoke Sen joined the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Bhopal (IISER Bhopal), Madhya Pradesh, as Visiting / Adjunct Professor in the Department of Physics.
