Research Expertise and Interest

cosmology, physics, quantum geometry, particle physics, string (and M-) theory, quantum gravity

Research Description

Petr Horava is a professor in the Department of Physics. His research interests are focused on string theory, as a leading candidate for the quantum theory of gravity and unification. In recent years, string theory has been going through a revolutionary period, whose results changed our understanding of the theory and created new paradigms in other fields, ranging from pure mathematics, to quantum field theory, to particle phenomenology and cosmology. He will continue exploring the theoretical structure of string theory, trying to clarify its underlying principles and implications for related areas of physics. Among the particularly fascinating open problems that are currently being addressed is the structure of non-supersymmetric excitations in string theory; however, his personal favorite is the question of how string theory modifies cosmology. After all, our current concepts of the universe are based on classical general relativity, and string theory is a substantial step beyond that -- it should be expected to revolutionize cosmology, once we learn how to study cosmological solutions of string theory and M-theory.