Stephen Hart Shenker (born 1953) is an American

theoretical physicist Theoretical physics is a branch of physics that employs mathematical models and abstractions of physical objects and systems to rationalize, explain, and predict natural phenomena. This is in contrast to experimental physics, which uses experi ...

who works on

string theory In physics, string theory is a theoretical framework in which the point-like particles of particle physics are replaced by one-dimensional objects called strings. String theory describes how these strings propagate through space and intera ...

. He is a professor at

Stanford University Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a Private university, private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth ...

and former director of the

Stanford Institute for Theoretical Physics The Stanford Institute for Theoretical Physics (SITP) is a research institute within the Physics Department at Stanford University. Led by 16 physics faculty members, the institute conducts research in high energy and condensed matter theoretica ...

. His brother

Scott Shenker Scott J. Shenker (born January 24, 1956) is an American computer scientist, and professor of computer science at the University of California, Berkeley. He is also the leader of the Extensible Internet Group at the International Computer Science ...

is a computer scientist.

Work

Shenker's contributions to physics include: * Basic results on the phase structure of gauge theories (with

Eduardo Fradkin Eduardo Hector Fradkin (born February 21, 1950) is an Argentinian theoretical physicist known for working in various areas of condensed matter physics, primarily using quantum field theoretical approaches. He is a Donald Biggar Willett Professor ...

) * Basic results on two dimensional conformal field theory and its relation to string theory (with

Daniel Friedan Daniel Harry Friedan (born October 3, 1948) is an American theoretical physicist and a professor at Rutgers University. He is one of three children of the feminist author and activist Betty Friedan. Biography Education and career Friedan earned ...

Emil Martinec Emil John Martinec (born 1958) is an American string theorist, a physics professor at the Enrico Fermi Institute at the University of Chicago, and director of the Kadanoff Center for Theoretical Physics. He was part of a group at Princeton Universi ...

, Zongan Qiu, and others) * The nonperturbative formulation of matrix models of low-dimensional string theory, the first nonperturbative definitions of string theory (with Michael R. Douglas) * The discovery of distinctively stringy nonperturbative effects in string theory, later understood to be caused by

D-branes In string theory, D-branes, short for Dirichlet membrane, are a class of extended objects upon which open string (physics), strings can end with Dirichlet boundary conditions, after which they are named. D-branes are typically classified by their ...

. These effects play a major role in string dynamics * The discovery of Matrix Theory, the first nonperturbative definition of String/M theory in a physical number of dimensions. Matrix Theory (see

matrix string theory In physics, matrix string theory is a set of equations that describe superstring theory in a non-perturbative framework. Type IIA string theory can be shown to be equivalent to a maximally supersymmetric two-dimensional gauge theory, the gauge gr ...

) is an example of a gauge/gravity duality and is now understood to be a special case of the

AdS/CFT In theoretical physics, the anti-de Sitter/conformal field theory correspondence (frequently abbreviated as AdS/CFT) is a conjectured relationship between two kinds of physical theories. On one side are anti-de Sitter spaces (AdS) that are used ...

correspondence (with Tom Banks,

Willy Fischler Willy Fischler (born 1949 in Antwerp, Belgium) is a theoretical physicist. He is the Jane and Roland Blumberg Centennial Professor of Physics at the University of Texas at Austin, where he is affiliated with the Weinberg theory group. He is als ...

and

Leonard Susskind Leonard Susskind (; born June 16, 1940)his 60th birth anniversary was celebrated with a special symposium at Stanford University.in Geoffrey West's introduction, he gives Suskind's current age as 74 and says his birthday was recent. is an Americ ...

) *Basic results on the connection between quantum gravity and

quantum chaos Quantum chaos is a branch of physics focused on how chaotic classical dynamical systems can be described in terms of quantum theory. The primary question that quantum chaos seeks to answer is: "What is the relationship between quantum mechanics ...

(with Douglas Stanford,

Juan Maldacena Juan Martín Maldacena (; born 10 September 1968) is an Argentine theoretical physicist and the Carl P. Feinberg Professor in the School of Natural Sciences at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton. He has made significant contributions to ...

and others)

Selected works

References

External links

home page of Stephen Shenker at Stanford

home page of Stanford Institute for Theoretical Physics

{{DEFAULTSORT:Shenker, Stephen Living people 21st-century American physicists Stanford University Department of Physics faculty American string theorists MacArthur Fellows Fellows of the American Physical Society 1953 births Harvard University alumni Cornell University alumni