Mukund Rangamani

Mukund Rangamani is a theoretical physicist and applied mathematician known for work on holographic duality, quantum field theory, and general relativity. He has produced influential contributions to the AdS/CFT correspondence, gravitational dynamics of black holes, and quantum entanglement in many-body systems. Rangamani's research spans collaborations with scholars across Princeton University, University of California, Berkeley, Stanford University, Harvard University, and Cambridge University.

Early life and education

Rangamani was born in Madras and completed early schooling in Chennai before moving to the United States for higher education. He earned undergraduate and graduate degrees from IIT Madras and pursued doctoral studies at Stanford University under advisors associated with the study of quantum field theory and string theory. Postdoctoral training included positions at institutions such as Princeton University, Harvard University, and research visits to Institute for Advanced Study, where he worked on problems bridging general relativity, thermodynamics of black holes, and quantum information theory.

Academic career and positions

Rangamani has held faculty appointments at major research universities, including roles as assistant professor and associate professor at institutions affiliated with the National Science Foundation research community. He has collaborated with groups at University of California, San Diego, University of California, Berkeley, Stanford University, MIT, and international centers such as CERN and the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics. He served on editorial boards of journals connected to the American Physical Society and participated in program committees for conferences organized by ICTP and the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics.

Research contributions

Rangamani's research focuses on holographic duality and its applications to strongly coupled quantum field theory, transport phenomena, and nonequilibrium dynamics. He has developed techniques linking the AdS/CFT correspondence to the study of relativistic hydrodynamics, dissipation, and thermalization in theories related to N=4 supersymmetric Yang–Mills theory. His work on holographic entanglement entropy built on foundational results by Juan Maldacena, Edward Witten, and Shinsei Ryu, extending geometric prescriptions to time-dependent settings and higher-curvature gravitational actions. Rangamani studied the dynamics of black hole horizons and quasinormal modes, connecting analyses by Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar and Stephen Hawking to modern numerical relativity approaches used at LIGO collaborations. He has investigated quantum information measures—such as mutual information and relative entropy—in holographic states, relating them to constraints from quantum energy conditions, the null energy condition, and the Bekenstein–Hawking entropy formula. Collaborative projects explored connections between entanglement wedges, bulk reconstruction, and quantum error correction inspired by work at Perimeter Institute and Institute for Advanced Study.

Selected publications

- "Holographic Hydrodynamics" — contributions appearing in journals and review volumes alongside research by Dam T. Son, Andrei Starinets, and Pavel Kovtun, addressing transport coefficients and the shear viscosity bound. - "Entanglement Entropy and Holography" — papers extending the Ryu–Takayanagi prescription with collaborators working in the tradition of Edward Witten, Juan Maldacena, and Horacio Casini, analyzing time-dependent entanglement and extremal surface prescriptions. - "Black Hole Dynamics and Thermalization" — studies of horizon formation, quasinormal spectra, and thermalization drawing on methods from numerical relativity and comparisons with results by Gary Horowitz and Sean Hartnoll. - "Quantum Information in Holography" — work on entanglement wedges, bulk reconstruction, and quantum error correction building on insights from Almheiri, Dong, and Harlow and collaborations at Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics. - Several review chapters and lecture notes used in graduate courses at University of California, San Diego and summer schools at ICTP and Les Houches.

Awards and honors

Rangamani's honors include a Sloan Research Fellowship and recognition through competitive grants such as the National Science Foundation CAREER award and faculty fellowships linked to institutes like Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics and Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics. He has been invited to give plenary and invited talks at conferences organized by the American Physical Society, Strings Conference, Quantum Information Processing Conference, and international workshops at CERN and ICTP.

Category:Living people Category:Theoretical physicists Category:String theorists