Professor Andrei Starinets

I am currently a tutor for special and general relativity for the third year undergraduate students.

Winner of the 2011 Institute of Physics Maxwell Medal, for contributions to understanding of the transport properties of systems of strongly coupled quantum fields.

My research is focused on applications of superstring theory to studies of strongly interacting systems at finite temperature and density. Newly developed string theory technique known as the gauge/gravity duality relates transport properties of strongly coupled plasmas (their viscosities, thermal conductivities, diffusion constants) to excitation spectra of black holes in dual curved spacetimes. By computing transport coefficients for these theoretical models, one gets qualitative insights into physics of strongly coupled hot and dense nuclear matter created in heavy ion collision experiments at RHIC (Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider in Brookhaven national Lab, USA) and LHC (Large Hadron Collider, CERN).