Email: wati at mit.edu Phone: 617.258.0729 Address: MIT Center for Theoretical Physics 77 Mass. Ave., Building 6-317 Cambridge, MA 02139 Related Links MIT Center for Theoretical Physics Physics of Energy [8.21] MIT Energy Initiative

Research Interests

Professor Taylor's research interests are centered on basic theoretical questions related to quantum physics and gravity. His recent work has focused on exploring the large number of apparent solutions to string theory and connections between these solutions and observable particle physics and cosmology.

[top]

Biographical Sketch

Washington Taylor is a Professor of Physics in the MIT Center for Theoretical Physics (CTP). Taylor received his BA in mathematics from Stanford, and his PhD in physics from UC-Berkeley in 1993. He came to MIT as a postdoc in the CTP in 1993. Taylor joined the faculty at Princeton University in 1995, and returned to MIT in 1998, where he was appointed the Class of 1942 Career Development Professor in 2000, and became a full professor in 2002. In 2008, Taylor was named a Class of 1960 Fellow for his work in energy education. Taylor has been an Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellow and a DOE Outstanding Junior Investigator.

Taylor teaches undergraduate and graduate courses ranging from electromagnetism to quantum field theory. With Prof. Robert Jaffe, Taylor has recently developed a new course on the Physics of Energy [8.21]. This course, taught for the first time in Fall 2008, is aimed at MIT undergraduates in any major. The course introduces students to the basic physical principles underlying the energy landscape, as well as applications of these principles to energy sources, uses and conversions. Taylor is a member of the MIT Energy Education Task Force and is currently involved in helping to develop MIT's energy education curriculum.

[top]

Selected Publications and Presentations

Review Papers

"D-branes, tachyons, and string field theory"; lectures on D-branes and recent developments in string field theory, by W. Taylor and B. Zwiebach; in proceedings of TASI 2001, Boulder, Colorado, July 2001; hep-th/0311017.

"M(atrix) Theory: Matrix Quantum Mechanics as a Fundamental Theory"; review article on the M(atrix) model of M-theory, Rev. Mod. Phys. 73, 419-462 (2001); hep-th/0101126.

[top]

Research Papers

"Inflationary Constraints on Type IIA String Theory", M. P. Hertzberg, S. Kachru, W. Taylor, and M. Tegmark. JHEP 0712:095 (2007); arXiv: 0711.2512 (hep-th).

"Nongeometric flux compactifications", J. Shelton, W. Taylor, and B. Wecht. JHEP 0510:085 (2005); hep-th/0508133.

"Type IIA moduli stabilization", O. De Wolfe, A. Giryavets, S. Kachru and W. Taylor. JHEP 0507:066 (2005); hep-th/0505160.

"Enumerating flux vacua with enhanced symmetries", O. De Wolfe, A. Giryavets, S. Kachru and W. Taylor. JHEP 0502:037 (2005); hep-th/0411061.

"A perturbative analysis of tachyon condensation", W.Taylor. JHEP 0303:029 (2003); hep-th/0208149.

"Open string field theory without open strings", I.Ellwood and W.Taylor. Phys. Lett. B 512, 181-188 (2001); hep-th/0103085.

"Multiple Dp-branes in weak background fields", W.Taylor and M.Van Raamsdonk. Nucl. Phys. B 573, 703-734 (2000); hep-th/9910052.

"Linearized supergravity from Matrix theory", D.Kabat and W.Taylor. Phys. Lett. B 426, 297-305 (1998); hep-th/9712185.

"D-brane field theory on compact spaces", W.Taylor. Phys. Lett. B 394, 283-287 (1997); hep-th/9611042.

"Two-dimensional QCD is a string theory", D.Gross and W.Taylor. Nucl. Phys. B 400, 181-210 (1993); hep-th/9301068.

[top]

Presentations

"Counting flux vacua with special properties", talk given at Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics (KITP), March 10, 2005; [PDF transparencies], [audio] and [video].

"String field theory and cosmology", informal talk given at KITP string cosmology workshop, August 27, 2003; [audio] and [time-lapse video].

"Emergent geometry and string field theory", talk at strings 2003, Kyoto, Japan, July 11, 2003; [PDF transparencies] and [audio].

"Computing tree and loop amplitudes in string field theory", talk at strings 2002, Cambridge, England, July 18, 2002; [transparencies], [audio], and [video].

"Gauge invariance and tachyon condensation in open string field theory", talk at strings 2001, Mumbai, India, January 7, 2001; [transparencies] and [audio].

"Tachyon condensation in open string field theory", talk given at PIMS Pacific Northwest seminar on string theory, March 17, 2001; [audio] and [video].

[top]