Rana X. Adhikari (born 1974) is an American experimental physicist. He is a professor of physics at the

California Institute of Technology The California Institute of Technology (branded as Caltech or CIT)The university itself only spells its short form as "Caltech"; the institution considers other spellings such a"Cal Tech" and "CalTech" incorrect. The institute is also occasional ...

(Caltech) and an associate faculty member of the International Centre for Theoretical Sciences of

Tata Institute of Fundamental Research Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR) is a public deemed research university located in Mumbai, India that is dedicated to basic research in mathematics and the sciences. It is a Deemed University and works under the umbrella of the De ...

(ICTS-TIFR). Adhikari works on the experimental physics of

gravitational wave detection Gravitational-wave astronomy is an emerging branch of observational astronomy which aims to use gravitational waves (minute distortions of spacetime predicted by Albert Einstein's theory of general relativity) to collect observational data about ...

and is among the scientists responsible for the U.S.-based

Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory The Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) is a large-scale physics experiment and observatory designed to detect cosmic gravitational waves and to develop gravitational-wave observations as an astronomical tool. Two large o ...

(LIGO) that discovered

gravitational wave Gravitational waves are waves of the intensity of gravity generated by the accelerated masses of an orbital binary system that propagate as waves outward from their source at the speed of light. They were first proposed by Oliver Heaviside in ...

s in 2015. He, along with

Lisa Barsotti Lisa Barsotti is a research scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Kavli Institute. Biography Barsotti was born June 1,1978 and was raised in Pisa, Italy. She obtained her PhD from University of Pisa in 2006 on ''The control o ...

and Matt Evans from

MIT The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the ...

, received the

New Horizons in Physics Prize The Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics is one of the Breakthrough Prizes, awarded by the Breakthrough Prize Board. Initially named Fundamental Physics Prize, it was founded in July 2012 by Russia-born Israeli entrepreneur, venture capita ...

in 2019 ''for research on current and future earth-based gravitational wave detectors.'' His research focus is on the areas of precision measurement related to surpassing fundamental physical limits to discover new phenomena related to gravity,

quantum mechanics Quantum mechanics is a fundamental theory in physics that provides a description of the physical properties of nature at the scale of atoms and subatomic particles. It is the foundation of all quantum physics including quantum chemistry, q ...

, and the true nature of space and time. Adhikari is actively involved in the LIGO-India project, which aims to build a gravitational-wave observatory in India. He was elected as a Fellow of the American Physical Society and a member of Optica (formerly known as Optical Society of America). Since 2019 he has been a member of the

Infosys Prize The Infosys Prize is an annual award given to scientists, researchers, engineers and social scientists of Indian origin (not necessarily born in India) by the Infosys Science Foundation and ranks among the highest monetary awards in India to re ...

jury for physical sciences.

Personal life

Adhikari was born in the U.S. state of

Ohio Ohio () is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. Of the List of states and territories of the United States, fifty U.S. states, it is the List of U.S. states and territories by area, 34th-l ...

to Indian Bengali immigrants from

Raiganj Raiganj () is a city and a municipality in the Indian state of West Bengal. It is the headquarters of the Uttar Dinajpur district. The police station was set up 125 years ago and railway connectivity reached the place 115 years ago. The city h ...

West Bengal West Bengal (, Bengali: ''Poshchim Bongo'', , abbr. WB) is a state in the eastern portion of India. It is situated along the Bay of Bengal, along with a population of over 91 million inhabitants within an area of . West Bengal is the four ...

, India. They moved to

Cape Canaveral, Florida Cape Canaveral ( es, Cabo Cañaveral, link=) is a city in Brevard County, Florida. The population was 9,912 at the 2010 United States Census. It is part of the Palm Bay–Melbourne– Titusville Metropolitan Statistical Area. History After ...

when he was seven. He studied physics at the

University of Florida The University of Florida (Florida or UF) is a public land-grant research university in Gainesville, Florida. It is a senior member of the State University System of Florida, traces its origins to 1853, and has operated continuously on its ...

, where he worked with

David Reitze David Howard Reitze (born 6 January 1961) is an American laser physicist who is Professor of Physics at the University of Florida and served as the scientific spokesman of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory ( LIGO) exper ...

, and graduated in 1998 with a bachelor's degree. In 2004, he received a PhD in physics from the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a Private university, private Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern t ...

under the supervision of experimental physicist

Rainer Weiss Rainer "Rai" Weiss ( , ; born September 29, 1932) is an American physicist, known for his contributions in gravitational physics and astrophysics. He is a professor of physics emeritus at MIT and an adjunct professor at LSU. He is best known ...

, and joined

Caltech The California Institute of Technology (branded as Caltech or CIT)The university itself only spells its short form as "Caltech"; the institution considers other spellings such a"Cal Tech" and "CalTech" incorrect. The institute is also occasional ...

Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory The Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) is a large-scale physics experiment and observatory designed to detect cosmic gravitational waves and to develop gravitational-wave observations as an astronomical tool. Two large o ...

(LIGO) project as a

postdoctoral researcher A postdoctoral fellow, postdoctoral researcher, or simply postdoc, is a person professionally conducting research after the completion of their doctoral studies (typically a PhD). The ultimate goal of a postdoctoral research position is to pu ...

. Adhikari was promoted as an

assistant professor Assistant Professor is an academic rank just below the rank of an associate professor used in universities or colleges, mainly in the United States and Canada. Overview This position is generally taken after earning a doctoral degree and gene ...

in 2006 and become a tenured professor of physics in 2012. He has also been an adjunct professor at the International Centre for Theoretical Sciences at the

(ICTS-TIFR) in

Bengaluru Bangalore (), officially Bengaluru (), is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of Karnataka. It has a population of more than and a metropolitan population of around , making it the third most populous city and fifth most ...

, India, since 2012.

Research

Adhikari has been involved in the construction and design of gravitational-wave detectors since 1997. He started working on laser interferometers as a graduate student at MIT, with a particular focus on the variety of noise sources, feedback loops and subsystems, and helped to reduce the noise in all 3 of the LIGO interferometers while working on the Livingston interferometer. In 2005, he received the first LIGO thesis prize. The Adhikari Research Group, part of the Division of Physics, Mathematics, and Astronomy at Caltech, focuses on new detector technologies for fundamental physics experiments (gravitational waves, dark matter, and near field gravity). Adhikari is also affiliated with the Caltech Material Science Department and together they work on advancing mechanical oscillators, nonlinear optics, acoustic metamaterials, and high efficiency photodetection for quantum measurements. Adhikari has collaborated with Kathryn Zurek to develop a new experiment that uses tabletop instruments to observe signatures of

quantum gravity Quantum gravity (QG) is a field of theoretical physics that seeks to describe gravity according to the principles of quantum mechanics; it deals with environments in which neither gravitational nor quantum effects can be ignored, such as in the v ...

. Adhikari has also been working on alternative

dark matter Dark matter is a hypothetical form of matter thought to account for approximately 85% of the matter in the universe. Dark matter is called "dark" because it does not appear to interact with the electromagnetic field, which means it does not ab ...

models. and space-based gravitational-wave detectors. He routinely collaborates with the international gravitational-wave community OzGrav,

KAGRA The Kamioka Gravitational Wave Detector (KAGRA), is a large interferometer designed to detect gravitational waves predicted by the general theory of relativity. KAGRA is a Michelson interferometer that is isolated from external disturbances: its ...

and

GEO600 GEO600 is a gravitational wave detector located near Sarstedt, a town 20 km to the south of Hanover, Germany. It is designed and operated by scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics, Max Planck Institute of Quantum Opti ...

LIGO-India

In 2007, during the International Conference on Gravitation and Cosmology (ICGC) at the Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCAA), Pune, the idea of having a LIGO observatory in India was first proposed by Rana X. Adhikari. The IndIGO Consortium was formed in 2009 and since then has been planning a roadmap for gravitational-wave astronomy and a phased strategy towards Indian participation in realizing a gravitational-wave observatory in the Asia-Pacific region. On February 17, 2016, less than a week after LIGO's landmark announcement about the detection of gravitational waves, Indian Prime Minister

Narendra Modi Narendra Damodardas Modi (; born 17 September 1950) is an Indian politician serving as the List of Prime Ministers of India, 14th and current Prime Minister of India since 2014. Modi was the List of chief ministers of Gujarat, Chief Minist ...

announced that the Cabinet has granted 'in-principle' approval to the

LIGO-India INDIGO or IndIGO (Indian Initiative in Gravitational-wave Observations) is a consortium of Indian gravitational-wave physicists. This is an initiative to set up advanced experimental facilities for a multi-institutional observatory project in ...

mega science proposal. The Indian gravitational-wave detector would be only the sixth such observatory in the world and will be similar to the two U.S. detectors in Hanford, Washington and Livingston, Louisiana. A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed on March 31, 2016, between the

Department of Atomic Energy The Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) (International Alphabet of Sanskrit Transliteration, IAST: ''Paramāṇu Ūrjā Vibhāga'') is a department with headquarters in Mumbai, Maharashtra, India. DAE was established in 1954 by a Presidential Or ...

and Department of Science & Technology in India and the

National Science Foundation The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent agency of the United States government that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. Its medical counterpart is the National ...

of the U.S. to develop the observatory in India. Adhikari was part of the delegation that met with the

Prime Minister of India The prime minister of India ( IAST: ) is the head of government of the Republic of India. Executive authority is vested in the prime minister and their chosen Council of Ministers, despite the president of India being the nominal head of th ...

Washington, DC ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...

, for the signing of the MoU between India and the U.S. to build a LIGO detector in India. In an interview with

Quartz India ''Quartz'' is an online news platform in English. It is focused on international business news. Quartz is privately held and was established in New York City in 2012. It is published in the United States with global business news and has specifi ...

, Adhikari said, "The presence of world-class infrastructure in the form of the LIGO detector and the latest R&D will attract the right talent for experimental physics from all across the country." In order to support the upcoming project,

LIGO The Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) is a large-scale physics experiment and observatory designed to detect cosmic gravitational waves and to develop gravitational-wave observations as an astronomical tool. Two large o ...

laboratory in Caltech has been hosting, for many years, talented and motivated undergraduate students from Indian institutions, pre-selected by LIGO-India Science Collaboration, as part of the International LIGO SURF program.

Scientific art and media

Adhikari was the subject of the documentary ''LIGO: The Way the Universe is, I think'' directed by Hussain Currimbhoy, Carrie McCarthy, and Mark Pedri. Screened at DOC NYC, San Francisco Documentary Film Festival, the RAW Science Film Festival in Los Angeles, and the Cineglobe Film Festival at CERN, Geneva, the short film focuses on a mechanic-turned-scientist who tuned the machine that spurred a dramatic re-envisioning of the universe through the detection of gravitational waves. In July 2017, he was part of ''Limits of Knowing'', a month-long set of exhibitions and programs organized with the

Berliner Festspiele The Berliner Festspiele ( German for Berlin Festivals) are a series of festivals, art exhibitions, and other cultural events organized all year long by a common organization in Berlin. Events are held at the Haus der Berliner Festspiele, a pre- ...

. For this exhibition, he presented a prototype of an artwork designed to sense the environment of the Martin-Gropius-Bau. The 30 x 30 x 130 cm immersive mixed media artwork named ''Untitled'' reacted to the space and all objects in it (including the visitors) by recording a variety of data: the building's vibrations, sounds, temperature, magnetic fields, and levels of infrared light. Later that year, on the anniversary of the first detection of gravitational waves, LA artist Rachel Mason's ''Singularity Song'' was released, as part of a fiscally sponsored program of Fulcrum Arts, Pasadena. ''Singularity Song'' is a meditation on black holes, pairing legendary butoh dancer

Oguri Naoyuki Oguri (born 1963), who performs as simply Oguri, is a dancer and choreographer from Japan who lives in Los Angeles, California, where he works creating and teaching dance. His work is influenced by the tradition of the Japanese Butoh style ...

with the voices of Caltech Theoretical Physicist

Kip Thorne Kip Stephen Thorne (born June 1, 1940) is an American theoretical physicist known for his contributions in gravitational physics and astrophysics. A longtime friend and colleague of Stephen Hawking and Carl Sagan, he was the Richard P. ...

, Rana X. Adhikari, indie rock icon

Carla Bozulich Carla Ragin Bozulich (born December 24, 1965) is an American musician based in Los Angeles, known as the lead singer, lyricist and founder of The Geraldine Fibbers and Evangelista as well as a founding member of Ethyl Meatplow and Scarnella. The ...

and experimental composer

Anna Homler Anna Homler (born November 1, 1948 in Los Angeles, California) is a visual, performance, and vocal artist living and working in Los Angeles. She has performed music and exhibited her artworks in venues around the world. She earned a B.A. at the U ...

. In January 2020, Scientific Inquirer posted an exchange between Australian recording artist Tex Crick and Adhikari, in which they discuss time travel using a mirror and listening to music in four dimensions. He was on the

Y combinator Y Combinator (YC) is an American technology startup accelerator launched in March 2005. It has been used to launch more than 3,000 companies, including Airbnb, Coinbase, Cruise, DoorDash, Dropbox, Instacart, Quora, PagerDuty, Reddit, Str ...

podcast discussing the technical challenges of measuring gravitational waves. He also appeared on Seeker's The Good, the Bad, and the Science Podcast (The Science of Men in Black) and has collaborated with Pioneer Works' Director of Sciences

Janna Levin Janna J. Levin (born 1967) is an American theoretical cosmologist and a professor of physics and astronomy at Barnard College. She earned a Bachelor of Science in astronomy and physics with a concentration in philosophy at Barnard College in 1 ...

. Adhikari appeared on ''

How the Universe Works ''How the Universe Works'' is a documentary science television series that originally aired on the Discovery Channel in 2010. All but the second and eighth seasons were narrated by Mike Rowe. The second and eighth seasons, as well as episodes of t ...

'', a documentary series aired on the

Discovery Science Channel Discovery may refer to: * Discovery (observation), observing or finding something unknown * Discovery (fiction), a character's learning something unknown * Discovery (law), a process in courts of law relating to evidence Discovery, The Discove ...

. In the episode ''Mystery of Spacetime (''season 6 episode 10) he ponders on the secret structure that controls our universe, time, light, and energy. He will appear in the feature-length documentary ''The Faraway, Nearby'' that examines the life of physicist

Joseph Weber Joseph Weber (May 17, 1919 – September 30, 2000) was an American physicist. He gave the earliest public lecture on the principles behind the laser and the maser and developed the first gravitational wave detectors ( Weber bars). Early educat ...

- the first scientist to explore the detection of gravitational waves.

Alan Lightman Alan Paige Lightman is an American physicist, writer, and social entrepreneur. He has served on the faculties of Harvard University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and is currently a Professor of the Practice of the Humanities a ...

is the co-creator of the science film. Adhikari will also be seen in BBC Studios Science Unit and

Bilibili Bilibili (stylized bilibili), nicknamed B Site, is a video sharing website based in Shanghai where users can submit, view and add overlaid commentary on videos. Since the mid-2010s, Bilibili began to expand to a broader audience from its orig ...

's ''Odyssey: Into The Future'', a 3-part science series featuring Chinese science fiction author

Liu Cixin Liu Cixin (, pronounced ; born 23 June 1963) is a Chinese science fiction writer. He is a nine-time winner of China's Galaxy Award (China), Galaxy Award and has also received the 2015 Hugo Award for his novel ''The Three-Body Problem (nov ...

and many of the futuristic concepts that inspired '' The Three-Body Problem'' series of novels.

Awards and recognition

* 2019 New Horizons in Physics: Breakthrough Foundation * 2018 American Physical Society Fellow * 2017 co-recipient

Albert Einstein Medal The Albert Einstein Medal is an award presented by the Albert Einstein Society in Bern. First given in 1979, the award is presented to people for "scientific findings, works, or publications related to Albert Einstein" each year. Recipients ...

* 2017 co-recipient

Princess of Asturias Award The Princess of Asturias Awards ( es, Premios Princesa de Asturias, links=no, ast, Premios Princesa d'Asturies, links=no), formerly the Prince of Asturias Awards from 1981 to 2014 ( es, Premios Príncipe de Asturias, links=no), are a series of a ...

* 2017 co-recipient Physics World: Breakthrough of the Year Award * 2017 co-recipient

Bruno Rossi Prize The Bruno Rossi Prize is awarded annually by the High Energy Astrophysics division of the American Astronomical Society "for a significant contribution to High Energy Astrophysics, with particular emphasis on recent, original work". Named after a ...

* 2017 co-recipient Group Award of the

Royal Astronomical Society (Whatever shines should be observed) , predecessor = , successor = , formation = , founder = , extinction = , merger = , merged = , type = NG ...

* 2016 co-recipient Physics World: Breakthrough of the Year Award * 2016 co-recipient

Gruber Cosmology Prize The Gruber Prize in Cosmology, established in 2000, is one of three prestigious international awards worth US$500,000 made by the Gruber Foundation, a non-profit organization based at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. Since 2001, the G ...

* 2016 co-recipient Special

Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics The Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics is one of the Breakthrough Prizes, awarded by the Breakthrough Prize Board. Initially named Fundamental Physics Prize, it was founded in July 2012 by Russia-born Israeli entrepreneur, venture cap ...

* 2016 Recognition by California Legislature

References