Rana X. Adhikari (born 1974 in Ohio, U.S.) is an American experimental physicist. He is a professor of physics at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) and an associate faculty member of the International Centre for Theoretical Sciences of Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (ICTS-TIFR).
Adhikari works on the experimental physics of gravitational wave detection and is among the scientists responsible for the U.S.-based Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO) that discovered gravitational waves in 2015. He, along with Lisa Barsotti and Matt Evans from MIT, received the New Horizons in Physics Prize in 2019 for research on current and future earth-based gravitational wave detectors. His research focus is on the areas of precision measurement related to surpassing fundamental physical limits to discover new phenomena related to gravity, quantum mechanics, and the true nature of space and time.
Adhikari is actively involved in the LIGO-India project, which aims to build a gravitational-wave observatory in India. He was elected as a Fellow of the American Physical Society and a member of Optica (formerly known as Optical Society of America). Since 2019 he has been a member of the Infosys Prize jury for physical sciences.
