Professor
Dept. of Physics, Enrico Fermi Institute, and the College
Kadanoff Center Director
- Address:
- MCP 427
- Phone:
- 773-834-4434
- Email:
- sethi@uchicago.edu
- Website:
- http://theory.uchicago.edu/~sethi/
Research
My research orients around questions with the following flavor: what is dark energy? What is the microscopic structure of space and time? Did space and time emerge in some kind of Big Bang? Will the universe end in a Big Crunch? What can we learn about quantum information from quantum gravity and black hole physics? How do we holographically define quantum gravity in spacetimes beyond anti-de Sitter space? What are the implications of symmetry, for example supersymmetry, in quantum field theory and effective theories of quantum gravity? What new theoretical structures exist between local quantum field theory and full-fledged string theory? What can gravitational wave observatories potentially teach us about quantum gravity and extra dimensions? What can string theory potentially teach us about collider physics and dark matter?
These topics are broadly studied in the disciplines of string theory, which is our best candidate for a theory of quantum gravity, general relativity and quantum field theory. These disciplines are the primary focus of my research. The questions that arise in exploring string theory, general relativity and quantum field theory intersect many other areas of physics, like condensed matter physics, as well as other fields of study like mathematics, occasionally computer science and information theory.