MATTHEW HEADRICK, Pappalardo
Fellow in Physics: 2003-06
Research Interests
Matthew Headrick has worked on a variety of areas in string theory,
including noncommutative solitons, the AdS/CFT correspondence, and
closed string tachyon condensation.
He is currently working on a project that aims to bridge numerical
relativity and string compactification. String theory requires extra
spatial dimensions beyond the three that have so far been observed.
It is generally believed that, if string theory is correct, the
extra dimensions are curled up into a compact manifold of very small
size. This manifold must have a geometry that obeys the Einstein
equations, as dictated by the general theory of relativity. The
existence of geometries solving these equations is guaranteed by
an abstract mathematical theorem that was proved over 25 years ago,
but the equations are so complicated that to date no one has succeeded
in finding even a single explicit solution. Headrick, along with
his collaborator Toby Wiseman of Harvard University, has developed
efficient techniques to solve these equations on a computer, and
has applied them to some simple examples of string compactifications.
[top]
Biographical Sketch
Headrick received his A.B. in Physics from Princeton University
in 1994. From 1994 to 1996, he served in the Peace Corps in Gabon.
He received his Ph.D. in Physics from Harvard University in 2003,
and was a Visiting Fellow at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research
in Bombay before starting his Pappalardo Fellowship in the fall
of 2003.
[top]
Selected Publications
"The large N limit of C/Z_N and supergravity,'' M. Headrick
and J. Raeymaekers, hep-th/0411148.
"Spacetime energy decreases under world-sheet RG flow,'' M.
Gutperle, M. Headrick, S. Minwalla and V. Schomerus, hep-th/0211063,
JHEP 0301:073 (2003).
"Operator mixing and the BMN correspondence,'' N.R. Constable,
D.Z. Freedman, M. Headrick and S. Minwalla, hep-th/0209002, JHEP
0210:068 (2002).
"On noncommutative multi-solitons,'' R. Gopakumar, M. Headrick
and M. Spradlin, hep-th/0103256, Commun. Math. Phys. 233:355 (2003).
"(2+1)-dimensional spacetimes containing closed timelike curves,''
M. Headrick and J.R. Gott III, Phys. Rev. D 50, 7244 (1994).
[top]
|
