Gary Horowitz – Research Interests
I am interested in
both
classical and quantum aspects of gravitational physics. My research is
mostly
focused on questions involving gravity under the most extreme
conditions. These
include the big bang in cosmology
and the spacetime inside black holes. According to general relativity,
these
are singularities – regions where Einstein's field equation
breaks down.
One of the most important open questions in classical
gravity is Penrose's cosmic censorship hypothesis:
Can a physical process produce singularities which are not hidden
inside black
holes? A deeper understanding of singularities is likely to require a
quantum
theory of gravity. String theory is a promising candidate for such a
theory and
I study gravitational aspects of string theory. This includes black
holes in
higher dimensions, quantum properties of black holes, and especially
quantum
descriptions of singularities.
I have written a
number of
articles for books or conference proceedings that are somewhat less
technical
than regular journal articles. A partial list is below:
Spacetime in String Theory,
to
appear in Spacetime 100 Years Later
(eds. Pullin and Price) 2005.
Playing with Black Strings,
in The
Future of Theoretical Physics and Cosmology, (eds. Gibbons, Shellard, and Rankin),
Cambridge University Press
(2003).
Quantum Gravity at the Turn
of the
Millennium, in Proceedings of the Ninth Marcel Grossmann
Meeting on
General Relativity (eds. V.G.
Gurzadyan, R.T. Jantzen and R.
Ruffini) World Scientific (2002)
Black Holes (with S.
Teukolsky)
in More Things in Heaven and Earth: A Celebration of Physics at the
Millennium (ed. B. Bederson)
Springer
(1999).
Quantum States of Black Holes,
in
Black Holes and Relativistic Stars,
(ed. R. Wald) University of Chicago Press (1998).