Ashoke Sen

Infobox_Scientist
name = Ashoke Sen


caption = Ashoke Sen at Harvard
birth_date = 1956
birth_place =
residence = India
nationality = Indian
field = Physics
work_institution = Fermilab
Stanford Linear Accelerator Center
Tata Institute of Fundamental Research
Harish-Chandra Research Institute
alma_mater = Presidency College, Kolkata
Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur
State University of New York at Stony Brook
doctoral_advisor =
doctoral_students =
known_for = String Theory
prizes =
religion =
footnotes = :"For the Indian politician, see Ashoke Kumar Sen."

Ashoke Sen ( _bn. অশোক সেন) (born 1956) is among India's most famous theoretical physicists. He has 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, [Ashoke Sen, " [http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?irn=2896893 Dyon - monopole bound states, selfdual harmonic forms on the multi - monopole moduli space, and SL(2,Z) invariance in string theory] " (1994), SPIRES-HEP bibliographic information.] 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. His description of [http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?irn=4893310| rolling tachyons] has been influential in string cosmology. He has also co-authored many important papers on string field theory. Of his nearly 200 research papers, as many as 47 papers have over 100 citations each [http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+EA+SEN%2C+ASHOKE&FORMAT=wwwcitesummary&SEQUENCE=] . Sen received his PhD from Stony Brook University. During his early career, he worked as a research scientist at Fermilab and the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC). Later he joined the Indian Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR) before finally moving to the Harish-Chandra Research Institute (HRI) where he currently works. He is married to Dr. Sumathi Rao, a condensed matter physicist at HRI.

Sen was awarded the ICTP Prize in memory of Hideki Yukawa in 1989 [ [http://www.ictp.trieste.it/~sci_info/awards/Prize/PrizeWinners/Prize89.html Award citation] ] and the S.S. Bhatnagar award in 1994. In 1998 Sen was made a Fellow of the Royal Society. [http://www.royalsoc.ac.uk/view_fellow.cfm?FID=1334]

The Outlook magazine of April 23, 2007 has listed him amongst India's 25 people who will not make it to the power list, yet have made significant contributions to society.

References

* [http://scientific.thomson.com/press/2006/8334014/ Thomson Honours Leading Indian Scientists] Five people receive the "Thomson Citation Laureate Award", including physics professor Ashoke Sen of the Harish-Chandra Research Institute.
* [http://www.hinduonnet.com/2001/01/07/stories/0207000o.htm The Hindu, Sunday, January 7, 2001: Stringing together the ultimate law] States that Dr. Ashoke Sen of HRI has "made several important contributions to the String Theory".