Ashoke Sen
{{Short description|Indian physicist (born 1956)}}
{{For|the Indian politician|Ashoke Kumar Sen}}
{{Use Indian English|date=January 2024}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=January 2024}}
{{Infobox scientist
| name = Ashoke Sen
| native_name =
| native_name_lang =
| image = Dr. Ashoke Sen in Physics department of Scottish Church College.jpg
| caption = Sen in the Physics department of Scottish Church College in 2019
| birth_date = {{Birth date and age|1956|7|15|df=yes}}
| birth_place = Kolkata, West Bengal, India
| death_date =
| death_place =
| fields = Physics
| workplaces = {{ublist|Fermilab|Stanford Linear Accelerator Center|Tata Institute of Fundamental Research|Harish-Chandra Research Institute|Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Bhopal}}
| alma_mater = {{ublist|Presidency College, Kolkata (BSc)|IIT Kanpur (MSc)|Stony Brook University (PhD)}}
| doctoral_advisor = {{ublist|George Sterman}}
| known_for = Contributions to string field theory
S-duality
Sen Conjecture
| awards = {{ublist|G.D. Birla Award for Scientific Research (1996)|TWAS Prize (1997)|Padma Shri (2001)|Infosys Prize - Mathematical Sciences (2009)|Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics (2012)|Padma Bhushan (2013)|Dirac Medal (2014)}}
| spouse = Sumathi Rao
| website = {{URL|https://home.icts.res.in/~sen/}}
}}
Ashoke Sen FRS ({{IPAc-en|ə|ˈ|ʃ|oʊ|k|_|s|ɛ|n}}; born 1956) is an Indian theoretical physicist and distinguished professor at the International Centre for Theoretical Sciences (ICTS), Bangalore. A former distinguished professor at the Harish-Chandra Research Institute, Prayagraj,{{cite news|author=Pulakkat, Hari|date=19 December 2013|title=How many of us know about Breakthrough Prize winner, Ashoke Sen?|url=https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/opinion/et-commentary/how-many-of-us-know-about-breakthrough-prize-winner-ashoke-sen/articleshow/27612815.cms|newspaper=The Economic Times|access-date=4 September 2019}} He is also an honorary fellow in National Institute of Science Education and Research (NISER) India{{cite web|url=https://www.niser.ac.in/sps/page/faculty|title=School of Physical Sciences|publisher=National Institute of Science Education and Research|access-date=4 September 2019}} 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".{{Cite web |title=Breakthrough Prize - Fundamental Physics Breakthrough Prize Laureates - Ashoke Sen |url=https://breakthroughprize.org/Laureates/1/L8 |website=breakthroughprize.org |access-date=17 June 2020}}
Early life
He was born on 15 July 1956{{cite web|title=Fellow Profile – Sen, Prof. Ashoke|url=http://www.ias.ac.in/describe/fellow/Sen,_Prof._Ashoke|website=Indian Academy of Sciences|access-date=23 January 2016|location=Bangalore|publisher=Indian Academy of Sciences}} 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.{{cite news|url=https://www.telegraphindia.com/india/physicist-with-pillow-power/cid/389848|title=Physicist with pillow power|author=Miudur, G.S.|date=2 August 2012|access-date=4 September 2019}}
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,{{cite journal|title=Dyon – monopole bound states, selfdual harmonic forms on the multi – monopole moduli space, and SL(2,Z) invariance in string theory|journal=Phys. Lett.|volume=B329|year=1994|pages=217–221|doi=10.1016/0370-2693(94)90763-3|arxiv=hep-th/9402032|bibcode= 1994PhLB..329..217S|last1=Sen|first1=Ashoke|issue=2–3|s2cid=17534677}} 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.{{cite journal|title=Tachyon condensation on the brane antibrane system|journal=JHEP|volume=1998|issue=8|year=1998|pages=012|doi=10.1088/1126-6708/1998/08/012|arxiv =hep-th/9805170|bibcode=1998JHEP...08..012S|last1=Sen|first1=Ashoke|s2cid=14588486}} His description of rolling tachyons{{cite journal|title=Rolling Tachyon|journal=JHEP|volume=2002|issue=4|year=2002|pages=048|doi=10.1088/1126-6708/2002/04/048|arxiv=hep-th/0203211|bibcode=2002JHEP...04..048S|last1=Sen|first1=Ashoke|s2cid=12023565}} 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. 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. 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.{{cite web|url=https://phy.iiserb.ac.in/faculty.php|title=Department of Physics|publisher=Indian Institute of Science, Education & Research- Bhopal (IISER-Bhopal)|access-date=2 September 2020|archive-date=22 September 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220922124141/https://phy.iiserb.ac.in/faculty.php|url-status=dead}} 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.{{cite web |title=Ashoke Sen {{!}} ICTS |url=https://www.icts.res.in/people/ashoke-sens |website=www.icts.res.in |access-date=10 June 2023}}{{better source needed|reason=Require WP:independent source|date=June 2023}}
Honors and awards
- ICTP Prize in 1989{{cite web|url=https://www.ictp.it/about-ictp/prizes-awards/the-ictp-prize/the-prize-winners/ictp-prize-winner-1989.aspx|title=ICTP Prize Winner 1989|access-date=4 September 2019}}
- Fellow of the Indian Academy of Sciences in 1991
- S.S. Bhatnagar award in 1994
- TWAS Prize 1997{{cite web|url=https://twas.org/recipients-twas-awards-and-prizes|title=Prizes and Awards|publisher=The World Academy of Sciences|access-date=4 September 2019}}
- Fellow of the Royal Society 1998
- Fellow of the Indian National Science Academy in 1996The Year Book 2014 // Indian National Science Academy, New Delhi.
- Padma Shri in 2001{{cite web|url=http://mha.nic.in/sites/upload_files/mha/files/LST-PDAWD-2013.pdf|title=Padma Awards|publisher=Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India|access-date=21 July 2015|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151015193758/http://mha.nic.in/sites/upload_files/mha/files/LST-PDAWD-2013.pdf|archive-date=15 October 2015}}
- Infosys Prize in the Mathematical Sciences, 2009{{Cite web|url=https://www.infosys-science-foundation.com/prize/laureates/2009/ashoke-sen.asp|title=Infosys Prize - Laureates 2009 - Prof. K VijayRaghavan|website=www.infosys-science-foundation.com}}
- Fundamental Physics Prize, 2012, for his work on string theory{{cite web|url=https://breakthroughprize.org/News/15|title=New annual US$3 million Fundamental Physics Prize recognizes transformative advances in the field|publisher=Breakthrough Prize|date=31 July 2012|access-date=4 September 2019}}{{cite news|url=http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics/nation/indian-scientist-ashoke-sen-bags-top-physics-honour/articleshow/15322177.cms|work=The Times of India|title=Indian scientist Ashoke Sen bags top physics honour|date=2 August 2012|access-date=4 September 2019}}
- Padma Bhushan in 2013{{cite news|url=http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2013-01-26/india/36563644_1_s-haider-raza-padma-awards-padma-vibhushan|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130128211127/http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2013-01-26/india/36563644_1_s-haider-raza-padma-awards-padma-vibhushan|url-status=dead|archive-date=28 January 2013|title=Rajesh Khanna, Sridevi, Mary Kom, Rahul Dravid on Padma list|agency=TNN|date=26 January 2013|work=The Times of India}}
- M.P. Birla Memorial Award in 2013
- Dirac Medal in 2014{{Cite web|url=https://www.ictp.it/about-ictp/prizes-awards/the-dirac-medal/the-medallists/dirac-medallists-2014.aspx|title=ICTP - Dirac Medallists 2014|website=www.ictp.it}}
Gallery
File:Ashoke Sen and Sumathi Rao.jpg|Sen and Prof. Sumathi Rao with students at Harish-Chandra Research Institute, 2018.
File:Ashoke Sen at Berbeque Festival.jpg|Sen preparing barbecue chicken at Barbecue Festival (Harish-Chandra Research Institute, Feb 2019)
References
{{Reflist}}
External links
{{Scholia}}
- {{Official website|http://www.hri.res.in/~sen/|name=Home page}}
- [http://www.hri.res.in/~sen/cv.pdf Ashoke Sen CV]
- [http://scientific.thomson.com/press/2006/8334014/ "Thomson Honours Leading Indian Scientists"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070312074859/http://scientific.thomson.com/press/2006/8334014/ |date=12 March 2007 }}
- {{usurped|[https://web.archive.org/web/20040505213325/http://www.hinduonnet.com/2001/01/07/stories/0207000o.htm The Hindu, Sunday, January 7, 2001: "Stringing together the ultimate law"]}}
- {{cite news|url=https://www.indiatoday.in/india/photo/profile-of-top-25-scientists-in-india-366262-2011-09-11|title=Profile of Top 25 scientists in India|date=11 September 2011|work=India Today|access-date=4 September 2019}}
{{commons category-inline|Ashoke Sen (physicist)}}
{{Padma Shri Award Recipients in Science & Engineering}}
{{Breakthrough Prize laureates}}
{{FRS 1998}}
{{SSBPST recipients in Physical Science}}
{{PadmaBhushanAwardRecipients 2010–19}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sen, Ashoke}}
Category:Presidency University, Kolkata alumni
Category:Fellows of the Indian National Science Academy
Category:Fellows of the Royal Society
Category:20th-century Indian physicists
Category:Stony Brook University alumni
Category:Indian string theorists
Category:University of Calcutta alumni
Category:Recipients of the Padma Shri in science & engineering
Category:Recipients of the Padma Bhushan in science & engineering
Category:Scottish Church Collegiate School alumni
Category:Scientists from Kolkata