Email: elvang@lns.mit.edu Phone: 617.253.4823 Address: MIT Center for Theoretical Physics 77 Massachusetts Ave. Room 6C-409 Cambridge, MA 02139 Related Links: MIT Center for Theoretical Physics Pappalardo Fellows Biographies Area of Physics: String Theory

Research Interests

Henriette Elvang works on gravitational aspects of string theory. A subject of particular interest to her is to understand the behavior of gravity in theories with extra spatial dimensions.

One direction of her research focuses on black holes in higher dimensions. It was realized in recent years that higher-dimensional black holes are not necessarily determined uniquely by their asymptotic conserved charges, such as mass and angular momentum. Moreover, higher-dimensional black holes need not have spherical horizons. Elvang is interested in what kinds of black hole solutions (supersymmetric or not) exist in higher dimensions, how far the violation of uniqueness goes, and the description of black holes in string theory. This is explored for instance by explicit
construction and analysis of new exact black hole solutions to Einstein's equations in higher dimensions.

Elvang also works on various aspects of supergravity theories and gauge-gravity duality.

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Biographical Sketch

Elvang received her Ph.D. in the summer of 2005 from the University of California, Santa Barbara, with advisor Gary Horowitz. Her thesis work focuses on black holes in higher dimensions and their role in string theory. In 1998 Elvang earned her B.Sc. in physics from the University of Copenhagen. She spent one year (1998-99) studying physics at the University of Edinburgh, and upon returning to Copenhagen she received her M.Sc. (Cand. Scient.) in physics in 2001.

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Selected Publications

Henriette Elvang, Daniel Z. Freedman, Boris Kors, "Anomaly cancellation in supergravity with Fayet-Iliopoulos couplings," JHEP 0611:068 (2006), hep-th/0606012.

Henriette Elvang, Pau Figueras, "Black Saturn," hep-th/0701035.

H. Elvang, R. Emparan, D. Mateos and H. S. Reall, "A supersymmetric black ring,'' Phys. Rev. Lett. 93, 211302 (2004), hep-th/0407065.

H. Elvang and R. Emparan, "Black rings, supertubes, and a stringy resolution of black hole non-uniqueness,'' JHEP 0311, 035 (2003), hep-th/0310008.

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