Shamit Kachru
Professor of Physics and Director, Stanford Institute for Theoretical Physics
Department:
Physics
Ph.D., Princeton University, Physics (1994)
A.B., Harvard University, Physics (1990)
Starting fall of 2021, I am winding down a term as chair of physics and then taking an extended sabbatical/leave. My focus during this period will be on updating my background and competence in rapidly growing new areas of interest including machine learning and its application to problems involving large datasets.
My recent research interests have included mathematical and computational studies of evolutionary dynamics; field theoretic condensed matter physics, including study of non-Fermi liquids and fracton phases; and mathematical aspects of string theory. I would characterize my research programs in these three areas as being in the fledgling stage, relatively recently established, and well developed, respectively.
It is hard to know what the future holds, but you can get some idea of the kinds of things I work on by looking at my past. Highlights of my past research include:
- The discovery of string dualities with 4d N=2 supersymmetry, and their use to find exact solutions of gauge theories (with Cumrun Vafa)
- The construction of the first examples of AdS/CFT duality with reduced supersymmetry (with Eva Silverstein)
- Foundational papers on string compactification in the presence of background fluxes (with Steve Giddings and Joe Polchinski)
- Basic models of cosmic acceleration in string theory (with Renata Kallosh, Andrei Linde, and Sandip Trivedi)
- First computation of the non-Gaussianity in general single field inflation (with Xingang Chen, Min-xin Huang, and Gary Shiu)
- Developing the framework underlying holography for non-relativistic field theories, relevant for modeling quantum matter at finite density (with Xiao Liu and Michael Mulligan)
- Simple and tractable models of non-Fermi liquids (with Liam Fitzpatrick, Jared Kaplan, and Sri Raghu)
- Studies of adaptive trade-offs in evolutionary dynamics of organisms exposed to a varying environment (with Daniel Fisher and Mikhail Tikhonov)
- Developing a new approach — using string duality — to find precise expressions for Ricci flat metrics on K3 surfaces (with Arnav Tripathy and Max Zimet)
For details about my present and former students, please see the “Research and Scholarship” link in my full Stanford profile.
My recent research interests have included mathematical and computational studies of evolutionary dynamics; field theoretic condensed matter physics, including study of non-Fermi liquids and fracton phases; and mathematical aspects of string theory. I would characterize my research programs in these three areas as being in the fledgling stage, relatively recently established, and well developed, respectively.
It is hard to know what the future holds, but you can get some idea of the kinds of things I work on by looking at my past. Highlights of my past research include:
- The discovery of string dualities with 4d N=2 supersymmetry, and their use to find exact solutions of gauge theories (with Cumrun Vafa)
- The construction of the first examples of AdS/CFT duality with reduced supersymmetry (with Eva Silverstein)
- Foundational papers on string compactification in the presence of background fluxes (with Steve Giddings and Joe Polchinski)
- Basic models of cosmic acceleration in string theory (with Renata Kallosh, Andrei Linde, and Sandip Trivedi)
- First computation of the non-Gaussianity in general single field inflation (with Xingang Chen, Min-xin Huang, and Gary Shiu)
- Developing the framework underlying holography for non-relativistic field theories, relevant for modeling quantum matter at finite density (with Xiao Liu and Michael Mulligan)
- Simple and tractable models of non-Fermi liquids (with Liam Fitzpatrick, Jared Kaplan, and Sri Raghu)
- Studies of adaptive trade-offs in evolutionary dynamics of organisms exposed to a varying environment (with Daniel Fisher and Mikhail Tikhonov)
- Developing a new approach — using string duality — to find precise expressions for Ricci flat metrics on K3 surfaces (with Arnav Tripathy and Max Zimet)
For details about my present and former students, please see the “Research and Scholarship” link in my full Stanford profile.
Publications
Kachru, S., Liu, X., & Mulligan, M. (2008). Gravity duals of Lifshitz-like fixed points. PHYSICAL REVIEW D, 78(10).
2008
Chen, X., Huang, M.-xin, Kachru, S., & Shiu, G. (2007). Observational signatures and non-Gaussianities of general single-field inflation. JOURNAL OF COSMOLOGY AND ASTROPARTICLE PHYSICS, (1).
2007
Kachru, S., Kallosh, R., Linde, A., & Trivedi, S. P. (2003). de Sitter vacua in string theory. PHYSICAL REVIEW D, 68(4).
2003
Kachru, S., Kallosh, R., Linde, A., Maldacena, J., McAllister, L., & Trivedi, S. P. (2003). Towards inflation in string theory. JOURNAL OF COSMOLOGY AND ASTROPARTICLE PHYSICS, (10).
2003
Giddings, S. B., Kachru, S., & Polchinski, J. (2002). Hierarchies from fluxes in string compactifications. PHYSICAL REVIEW D, 66(10).
2002
Kachru, S., & Silverstein, E. (1998). 4D conformal field theories and strings on orbifolds. PHYSICAL REVIEW LETTERS, 80(22), 4855–4858.
1998
Kachru, S., Klemm, A., Lerche, W., Mayr, P., & Vafa, C. (1996). Non-perturbative results on the point particle limit of N=2 heterotic string compactifications. NUCLEAR PHYSICS B, 459(3), 537–555.
1996
Kachru, S., & Vafa, C. (1995). EXACT RESULTS FOR N=2 COMPACTIFICATIONS OF HETEROTIC STRINGS. NUCLEAR PHYSICS B, 450(1-2), 69–89.
1995
