Suvrat Raju is an Indian physicist. He is known for his work on

black hole A black hole is a massive, compact astronomical object so dense that its gravity prevents anything from escaping, even light. Albert Einstein's theory of general relativity predicts that a sufficiently compact mass will form a black hole. Th ...

s. He was awarded the 2019

ICTP Prize The International Centre for Theoretical Physics Prize (ICTP Prize) is an annual award given by the ICTP Scientific Council since 1982. It is given to outstanding and original contributions in physics by young scientists from, and working in, devel ...

and the 2022 Nishina Asia award.

Research

Raju advanced a potential resolution of the

black hole information paradox The black hole information paradox is a paradox that appears when the predictions of quantum mechanics and general relativity are combined. The theory of general relativity predicts the existence of black holes that are regions of spacetime from ...

, which is based on the idea that "all the information inside a black hole can be recovered from outside" in quantum gravity. Together with Kyriakos Papadodimas, Raju formulated the Papadodimas-Raju proposal for black holes Raju was part of a collaboration that proposed the utility of the

Mellin transform In mathematics, the Mellin transform is an integral transform that may be regarded as the multiplicative version of the two-sided Laplace transform. This integral transform is closely connected to the theory of Dirichlet series, and is often used ...

in AdS/CFT arguing that it provided a "natural language" for correlation functions. Raju was part of a collaboration that developed an "index" for quantum field theories with super-conformal symmetry.

Career

Raju studied physics at St. Stephen's College in Delhi University from 1999 to 2002. He earned his PhD at Harvard University in 2008. He is currently a professor at the International Centre for Theoretical Sciences of the

Tata Institute of Fundamental Research Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR) is a leading research Institute under the Department of Atomic Energy of the Government of India. It is a public deemed university located at Navy Nagar, Colaba in Mumbai. It also has a centres in ...

Awards and honours

* 2022 Nishina Asia award for "his original and influential insights into the resolution of the black hole information paradox and the principle of holography in quantum gravity." * 2020

Asian Scientist 100 The Asian Scientist 100 is an annually published list of 100 prize-winning Asian researchers, academicians, innovators and business leaders from across the Asia-Pacific region and a range of scientific disciplines. Recipients "must have received ...

* 2019

"for new insights into the holographic description of black-hole interiors, for clarifying the nature of subtle non-local effects in quantum gravity, and for contributions to the study of the AdS/CFT correspondence." * 2017 Swarnajayanti Fellowship * 2015 Smt. Saraswathi Cowsik medal * 2013

Indian National Science Academy The Indian National Science Academy (INSA) is a national academy in New Delhi New Delhi (; ) is the Capital city, capital of India and a part of the Delhi, National Capital Territory of Delhi (NCT). New Delhi is the seat of all three b ...

medal for young scientists * 2013 National Academy of Sciences of India young scientist award

Selected publications

* * * *

Public Advocacy

Raju criticized aspects of the Indo-U.S. nuclear deal arguing, with M. V. Ramana, that the Indian nuclear liability bill favored foreign nuclear corporations and that the nuclear reactors that the Indian government was planning to import were expensive. Raju was part of a team of scientists that released a report on the protests at Hyderabad central University in 2016 that was critical of the actions of the university administration. Raju was part of a group of scientists who argued that the 2019 Indian Citizenship (Amendment) Act was discriminatory.

References

{{reflist Indian physicists St. Stephen's College, Delhi alumni Harvard University alumni Year of birth missing (living people) Living people