Ashoke Sen

Template:Short description Template:For Template:Use Indian English Template:Use dmy dates Template:Infobox scientist Ashoke Sen FRS (Template:IPAc-en; born 1956) is an Indian theoretical physicist and distinguished professor at the International Centre for Theoretical Sciences (ICTS), Bangalore.<ref name="ICTS"/> A former distinguished professor at the Harish-Chandra Research Institute, Prayagraj,<ref name="Pulakkat">Template:Cite news</ref> He is also an honorary fellow in National Institute of Science Education and Research (NISER) India.<ref name="auto">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> He is also a Morningstar Visiting professor at MIT and a distinguished professor at the Korea Institute for Advanced Study. His main area of work is string theory. He was among the first recipients of the Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics "for opening the path to the realization that all string theories are different limits of the same underlying theory".<ref name=":0">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Early life

He was born on 15 July 1956<ref name=IASFellowProfile>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> in Kolkata, and is the elder son of Anil Kumar Sen, a former professor of physics at the Scottish Church College, Kolkata, and Gouri Sen, a homemaker.<ref name=pillow_power>Template:Cite news</ref>

After completing his schooling from Sailendra Sircar Vidyalaya in Kolkata, he earned his Bachelor of Science degree in 1975 from the Presidency College under the University of Calcutta, and his master's a year later from the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur. During his undergraduate studies at Presidency, he was greatly inspired by the work and teaching of Amal Kumar Raychaudhuri. He did his doctoral work in physics at Stony Brook University.

Career

Ashoke Sen made a number of major original contributions to the subject of string theory, including his landmark paper on strong-weak coupling duality or S-duality,<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> which was influential in changing the course of research in the field. He pioneered the study of unstable D-branes and made the famous Sen conjecture about open string tachyon condensation on such branes.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> His description of rolling tachyons<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> has been influential in string cosmology. He has also co-authored many important papers on string field theory.

In 1998, he won the fellowship of the Royal Society on being nominated by the theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking.<ref name="Pulakkat" /> His contributions include the entropy function formalism for extremal black holes and its applications to attractors. His recent important works include the attractor mechanism and the precision counting of microstates of black holes, and new developments in string perturbation theory. He joined the National Institute of Science Education and Research (NISER) India as an honorary professor in the School of Physical Sciences.<ref name="auto"/> In the year 2020, he joined Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Bhopal (IISER Bhopal), Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, India as a Visiting / Adjunct Professor in the department of Physics.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> He is currently serving as a distinguished professor at the International Centre for Theoretical Sciences (ICTS), Bangalore where he is working on string theory. His specific research interests include S-duality, tachyon condensation, black hole entropy and superstring perturbation theory.<ref name="ICTS">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>Template:Better source needed

Honors and awards

• ICTP Prize in 1989<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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• Fellow of the Indian Academy of Sciences in 1991<ref name=IASFellowProfile/>
• S.S. Bhatnagar award in 1994
• TWAS Prize 1997<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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• Fellow of the Royal Society 1998<ref name="Pulakkat"/>
• Fellow of the Indian National Science Academy in 1996<ref>The Year Book 2014 // Indian National Science Academy, New Delhi.</ref>
• Padma Shri in 2001<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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• Infosys Prize in the Mathematical Sciences, 2009<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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• Fundamental Physics Prize, 2012, for his work on string theory<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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• Padma Bhushan in 2013<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
• M.P. Birla Memorial Award in 2013
• Dirac Medal in 2014<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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Gallery

• Ashoke Sen and Sumathi Rao.jpg

  Sen and Prof. Sumathi Rao with students at Harish-Chandra Research Institute, 2018.

• Ashoke Sen at Berbeque Festival.jpg

  Sen preparing barbecue chicken at Barbecue Festival (Harish-Chandra Research Institute, Feb 2019)

External links

• Template:Official website
• Ashoke Sen CV
• "Thomson Honours Leading Indian Scientists" Template:Webarchive
• Template:Usurped
• Template:Cite news