Savan Kharel Department of Physics, University of Chicago 5720 South Ellis Avenue, Chicago, IL 60637
Email: ytivarg@uchicago.edu
Teaching and Mentoring
I am a highly accomplished educator with a proven track record of excellence in diverse academic environments, from liberal arts colleges like Williams College to research-intensive universities such as Yale and the University of Chicago. My teaching portfolio encompasses a wide range of courses, from introductory to advanced levels. I employ innovative teaching methods that blend interactive techniques with traditional lectures to deepen student engagement and foster critical thinking.
Beyond the classroom, I actively contribute to the broader education community, sharing pedagogical strategies at UChicago and at national and international conferences. Notable achievements include developing the course “Being Human in STEM” at Williams College and co-teaching a related course at Yale, which highlights my commitment to inclusivity in education. My recent courses, such as “Gravitation to Levitation: From Supernova to Superconductor,” reflect my diverse academic interests.
Additionally, I have supervised over a dozen students in theoretical and computational physics research, guiding them at both undergraduate and graduate levels.
Research: Scattering Amplitudes, Holography, and Cosmology
My research focuses into the cutting-edge domains of high-energy theoretical physics, quantum gravity, and cosmology, with a central focus on the powerful tool of scattering theory—a cornerstone of modern physics that has continually pushed the frontiers of our understanding. Historically, scattering techniques have been instrumental in unearthing important discoveries, such as the identification of the atomic nucleus and the Higgs boson at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC).
Building on this rich legacy, my work seeks to push these methodologies beyond the well-explored confines of flat spacetimes, extending them to the more complex and intriguing realms of curved spacetimes, particularly within the frameworks of Anti-de Sitter (AdS) and de Sitter (dS) spaces. This approach enables us to probe the interplay between quantum field theory and gravity in settings that more closely mirror the cosmological structure of our universe.
I am especially interested in exploring the connections between holographic duality and cosmology, with the aim of generalizing the elegant structures found in flat-space scattering amplitudes to curved spacetimes.
Recent Scientific Publications:
Toward the Feynman rule for n-point gluon Mellin amplitudes in AdS/CFT, Physical Review D 109, 106003 (2024), [arXiv:2401.00038] with J. Chu
Momentum-space formulae for AdS correlators for diverse theories in diverse dimensions, Journal of High Energy Physics 07, 281 (2024), [arXiv:2312.02154] with S. Albayrak and X. Wang
Mellin amplitude for n-gluon scattering in anti–de Sitter spacetime, Physical Review D 109, L101901 (2024), [arXiv:2311.06342] with J. Chu
All plus four-point (A)dS graviton function using generalized on-shell recursion relation, Journal of High Energy Physics 05, 151 (2023), [arXiv:2302.09089] with S. Albayrak
On duality of color and kinematics in (A)dS momentum space, Journal of High Energy Physics 03, 249 (2021), [arXiv:2012.10460] with S. Albayrak and D. Meltzer
On loop celestial amplitudes for gauge theory and gravity, Physical Review D 102, 126020 (2020), [arXiv:2007.09338] with S. Albayrak and C. Chowdhury
Spinning loop amplitudes in anti–de Sitter space, Physical Review D 103, 026004 (2021), [arXiv:2006.12540] with S. Albayrak
Study of momentum space scalar amplitudes in AdS spacetime, Physical Review D 101, 124043 (2020)[arXiv:2001.06777] with S. Albayrak and C. Chowdhury
Towards the higher point holographic momentum space amplitudes. Part II. Gravitons, Journal of High Energy Physics 12, 135 (2019), [arXiv:1908.01835] with S. Albayrak
New relation for Witten diagrams, Journal of High Energy Physics 10, 274 (2019), [arXiv:1904.10043] with S. Albayrak and C. Chowdhury
Towards the higher point holographic momentum space amplitudes, Journal of High Energy Physics 02, 040 (2019), [arXiv:1810.12459] with S. Albayrak
Despite being away from my homeland, I remain a proud Nepali. The mountains of Nepal have a timeless allure, but it is the vibrant chaos of Kathmandu that fills me with joy. As Edward Abbey once said: “May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing view. May your mountains rise into and above the clouds…”
