David Kastor

Email: kastor@physics.umass.edu

Physics Department
1130 Lederle Graduate Research Tower
University of Massachusetts
Amherst, MA 01003

Phone: 413 545-0545

Personal Homepage

Ph.D Institution and Year: 

University of Chicago, 1988

Research Area: 

Classical and Quantum Gravity and String Theory

Research Interest: 

My research focuses on aspects of classical and quantum gravity in the context of string theory. String theory attempts to unify particle physics with general relativity at the quantum level. From a gravity point of view, string theory introduces many intriguing new elements - extra dimensions, supersymmetry, higher p-form gauge fields & p-branes, as well as the higher curvature interactions expected in any quantum theory of gravity. A great deal of effort has gone into understanding how these new features modify the strong gravitational fields of black holes.

One particular current interest of mine is examining whether the second law of black hole thermodynamics continues to hold in the presence of higher curvature corrections. In general relativity, the second law follows from Hawking's celebrated area theorem, which says that the area of a black hole's event horizon always increases in time. Proving, or disproving, an analogue of this theorem in higher curvature gravity will require generalizing Raychaudhuri's classical theorem on the focusing of null geodesics.

Selected Publications:

1. Stresses and Strains in the First Law for Kaluza-Klein Black Holes, David Kastor and Jennie Traschen, Published in JHEP 0609:022,2006. Archive: hep-th/0607051
2. On black strings and branes in Lovelock gravity, David Kastor and Robert Mann, Published in JHEP 0604:048,2006. Archive: hep-th/0603168
3. Conserved gravitational charges from Yano tensor, David Kastor and Jennie Traschen, Published in JHEP 0408:045,2004. Archive: hep-th/0406052
4. From wrapped M branes to Calabi-Yau black holes and strings, David Kastor, Published in JHEP 0307:040,2003. Archive: hep-th/0305261
5. A Positive energy theorem for asymptotically de Sitter space-times, David Kastor and Jennie Traschen, Published in Class.Quant.Grav.19:5901-5920,2002.Archive: hep-th/0206105