Hi guys, I am interested in General Relativity and I'll be applying for PhD.
I'd be glad if someone could review my SOP.
I have one doubt beforehand. Should I write complete name papers which I have reviewed within the SOP text or should I cite them and give them reference in the last? I want to pursue a Ph.D. in Theoretical Physics, and my career aspiration is to become a professor. I am interested in gauge theory and general relativity. I am currently doing a master's thesis with Prof. X entitled “A”
My interest, particularly in general relativity, stems from the past 3 summers I spent learning the basic background, specifically classical field theory and gauge theory. There have been two consistent principles guiding my interest throughout my studies: abstract generalization and its interpretation in physics. However, I get a deep sense of satisfaction if I can dig deep into anything that interests me.
For the past 6 months, I have been working with Prof. X doing my master's thesis. In the starting, I learned about geodesic congruences and hypersurfaces for which I followed Eric Poisson's "A relativistic toolkit- the mathematics of black hole." I learned about the GHY boundary term and its variation in case of spacelike/timelike congruence, which makes the variational principle well defined and reviewed the paper by Prof.Y "B" in which he shows how the variational principle itself shows what should be added to the Einstein-Hilbert action to make it well posed rather than blindly adding GHY term beforehand. In the process, I also learned about the Hamiltonian formulation of General Relativity and reviewed the paper "C," in which the same approach was used as in the previous paper, which I reviewed but now for the case of null boundaries. I am currently following Ruth Gregory's lectures on Gravitational Physics given at Perimeter. My further aim is to understand thermodynamical aspects at the boundaries. Prior to my master's project, I spent my summer 2018 under Prof. Z, in which I learned classical field theory. It was the most exciting time of my life working under Prof. Z, who helped me look into physics in a more profound and mathematical way. I spent my summer 2019 under Prof. P in which I learned gauge theory for which I followed John Baez's book "Gauge field, Knots, and Gravity" and reviewed the paper "D" . I have done one introductory course on general relativity at my university, and other General Relativity course on coursera. In addition to that I have also completely followed Prof. Federic Schuller lectures on “International Winter School on Gravity and Light 2015”. I have been receiving an INSPIRE scholarship from the Government of India for the past 4.5 years for my studies. I am also interested in theories beyond general relativity like spacetime with more than 4 dimensions. Aside from this, I am always open to new interesting projects related to general relativity and hope to gain a deep understanding of the field during my Ph.D. At X, there are few professors whose research interests coincide with mine and whose research projects I find appealing: Prof. X,Y,Z. Reading some of these Professor's papers have given me sense that X is a great place for me to pursue my PhD.
