View source for Andrew Strominger

{{short description|American physicist}}
{{BLP sources|date=December 2017}}
{{Infobox scientist
| name              = Andrew E. Strominger
| image             = Andrew Strominger at Harvard.jpg
| image_size        = 
| alt               = 
| caption           = Strominger in 2004
| birth_date        = {{birth date and age|1955|07|30}}
| birth_place       = 
| death_date        = <!--{{death date and age |YYYY|MM|DD |YYYY|MM|DD}} (death date then birth date)-->
| death_place       = 
| citizenship       = US
| fields            = [[Physics]]
| workplaces        = [[University of California, Santa Barbara]] <br/>
[[Harvard University]]
| alma_mater        = [[Harvard College]] ([[Bachelor of Arts|AB]], 1977) <br/> [[University of California, Berkeley]] ([[Master of Arts|MA]], 1979) <br/> [[Massachusetts Institute of Technology|MIT]] ([[PhD]], 1982)
| known_for         = [[CGHS model]] <br/> Contributions to: <br/> [[String theory]] <br/> [[Quantum gravity]] <br/> [[dS/CFT correspondence]]<br/>[[Kerr/CFT correspondence]]<br/>[[SYZ conjecture]]<br/>[[S-brane]]
| prizes            = [[Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics]] (2017) <br/> [[Oskar Klein Memorial Lecture|Klein Medal]] (2014) <br/> [[Dirac Medal (ICTP)|Dirac Medal]] (2014) <br/> [[Dannie Heineman Prize for Mathematical Physics|Dannie Heineman Prize]] (2016) <br/> [[Guggenheim Fellowship]] (2020)
| thesis_title      = The large symmetry approximation in quantum field theory
| thesis_url        = https://www.worldcat.org/title/8153582
| thesis_year       = 1981
| doctoral_advisor  = [[Roman Jackiw]]
| doctoral_students = {{plainlist|1=
*[[Ruth Britto]]
*[[Sabrina Gonzalez Pasterski]]
*[[Anastasia Volovich]]
*[[Xi Yin]]
}}
}}

'''Andrew Eben Strominger''' ({{IPAc-en|ˈ|s|t|r|ɑː|m|ɪ|n|dʒ|ər}};<ref>[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-RAeb4WqsIo The Dirac Roundtable]<!--at 0:16--></ref> born 1955) is an American [[theoretical physics|theoretical physicist]] who is the director of Harvard's [[Center for the Fundamental Laws of Nature]]. He has made significant contributions to [[quantum gravity]] and [[string theory]]. These include his work on [[Calabi–Yau manifold|Calabi–Yau compactification]] and topology change in string theory, and on the stringy origin of [[black hole entropy]]. He is a senior fellow at the [[Society of Fellows]], and is the Gwill E. York Professor of Physics.

==Education==
Strominger received his bachelor's degree at [[Harvard College]] in 1977 and his master's degree at the [[University of California, Berkeley]]. He then received his PhD at [[MIT]] in 1982 under the supervision of [[Roman Jackiw]]. Prior to joining Harvard as a professor in 1997, he held a faculty position at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He is the author of over 200 publications.

== Research ==

=== Notable contributions ===

* a paper with [[Cumrun Vafa]] that explains the microscopic origin of the [[black hole thermodynamics|black hole entropy]], originally calculated thermodynamically by [[Stephen Hawking]] and [[Jacob Bekenstein]], from string theory<ref>{{cite journal |title= Microscopic origin of the Bekenstein-Hawking entropy |date=1996 |doi=10.1016/0370-2693(96)00345-0 |arxiv=hep-th/9601029 |last1=Strominger |first1=Andrew |last2=Vafa |first2=Cumrun |journal=Physics Letters B |volume=379 |issue=1–4 |pages=99–104 |bibcode=1996PhLB..379...99S }}</ref>
* a paper with Philip Candelas, Gary Horowitz, and [[Edward Witten]] in the 1980s about the relevance of [[Calabi–Yau manifold]]s for obtaining the [[Standard Model]] from [[string theory]]
* other articles discussing the [[dS/CFT correspondence]] and the [[Kerr/CFT correspondence]] (variations of the [[AdS/CFT]] correspondence)
* [[S-brane]]s (a variation of [[D-branes]])
* OM-theory (with [[Shiraz Minwalla]] and [[Nathan Seiberg]])
* noncommutative [[soliton]]s (with [[Anastasia Volovich]], [[Shiraz Minwalla]] and [[Rajesh Gopakumar]])
* massless black holes in the form of wrapped [[D-branes|D3-branes]] that regulate the physics of a [[conifold]] and allow [[topology]] change
* the [[SYZ conjecture]], an interpretation of [[Homological mirror symmetry|mirror symmetry]] as a special case of [[T-duality]] (with [[Eric Zaslow]] and [[Shing-Tung Yau]])
* purely cubic action for [[string field theory]]
* superstrings with [[torsion tensor|torsion]]
* a study of the relationship between [[BMS group|asymptotic symmetries]] in [[asymptotically flat spacetimes]], soft theorems and memory effects
* an analytic calculation of the exact spectrum of gravitational wave emission from [[extreme mass ratio inspiral|extreme mass ratio inspirals (EMRIs)]] into rapidly rotating black holes (these gravitational waves are expected to be detected with future space-based [[gravitational wave detector]]s such as [[Evolved Laser Interferometer Space Antenna|eLISA]])

=== Awards ===

In recognition of his accomplishments, Strominger has been awarded numerous prizes, fellowships, and honorary professorships. These include the [[Oskar Klein Memorial Lecture|Klein Medal]] from the [[Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences]], the 2008 Eisenbud Prize from the American Mathematical Society, the 2014 [[Dirac Medal (ICTP)|Dirac Medal]] from the [[International Centre for Theoretical Physics|Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics]], which he received for his contributions to the origin, development, and further understanding of string theory, and the 2017 [[Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics]] with [[Cumrun Vafa]] and [[Joseph Polchinski]]. In 2020, he received a [[List of Guggenheim Fellowships awarded in 2020|Guggenheim Fellowship]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.gf.org/fellows/all-fellows/andrew-strominger/|title=Guggenheim Fellowship in 2020}}</ref>

== See also ==

* [[Pasterski–Strominger–Zhiboedov triangle]]

==References==
{{reflist}}

== External links ==
{{wikiquote}}
* [https://www.physics.harvard.edu/people/facpages/strominger Home page of Strominger at Harvard]
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20161118201031/https://www.physics.harvard.edu/uploads/files/Newsletter_Fall_2015.pdf Harvard Physics Department Newsletter, fall 2015] describing the Strominger group's research (pp.&nbsp;21–25)
* [http://inspirehep.net/search?p=find+a+strominger Strominger's articles] in the [[INSPIRE-HEP]] database

{{Breakthrough Prize laureates}}
{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Strominger, Andrew}}
[[Category:1955 births]]
[[Category:Living people]]
[[Category:21st-century American physicists]]
[[Category:Harvard University faculty]]
[[Category:Harvard College alumni]]
[[Category:Massachusetts Institute of Technology alumni]]
[[Category:MIT Center for Theoretical Physics people]]
[[Category:American string theorists]]
[[Category:Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences]]
[[Category:Massachusetts Institute of Technology School of Science alumni]]
[[Category:Fellows of the American Physical Society]]