Stephen Shenker
Stephen Shenker | |
---|---|
MacArthur Fellowship American Academy of Arts and Sciences Lars Onsager Prize (2010) National Academy of Sciences Dirac Medal (2023) | |
Scientific career | |
Fields | theoretical physics |
Institutions | Stanford University Rutgers University University of Chicago |
Doctoral advisor | John Kogut |
Doctoral students | Joanne Cohn Matthew Kleban |
Stephen Hart Shenker (born 1953) is an American theoretical physicist who works on string theory. He is a professor at Stanford University and former director of the Stanford Institute for Theoretical Physics. His brother Scott Shenker is a computer scientist.
Work
Shenker's contributions to physics include:
- Basic results on the phase structure of gauge theories (with Eduardo Fradkin)
- Basic results on two dimensional conformal field theory and its relation to string theory (with Daniel Friedan, Emil Martinec, Zongan Qiu, and others)
- The nonperturbative formulation of matrix models of low-dimensional string theory, the first nonperturbative definitions of string theory (with Michael R. Douglas)
- The discovery of distinctively stringy nonperturbative effects in string theory, later understood to be caused by D-branes. These effects play a major role in string dynamics
- The discovery of Matrix Theory, the first nonperturbative definition of String/M theory in a physical number of dimensions. Matrix Theory (see )
- Basic results on the connection between quantum gravity and quantum chaos (with Douglas Stanford, Juan Maldacena and others)
Selected works
- Fidkowski, Lukasz; S2CID 119363210.