ଭୌତିକ ବିଜ୍ଞାନ ବିଭାଗ
ଜାତୀୟ ବିଜ୍ଞାନ ଶିକ୍ଷା ଏବଂ ଗବେଷଣା ପ୍ରତିଷ୍ଠାନ

भौतिक विज्ञान विभाग
राष्ट्रीय विज्ञान शिक्षा एवं अनुसंधान संस्थान

SCHOOL OF PHYSICAL SCIENCES
NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF SCIENCE EDUCATION AND RESEARCH

 

Research Area

A V Anil Kumar

Condensed Matter Physics

Ajaya Kumar Nayak

Recent Interest:

  • Skyrmions
  • Anomalous/Topological Hall effect
  • Antiferromagnetic spintronics
  • Exchange bias
  • Hard magnets
Amaresh Kumar Jaiswal
  • Relativistic dissipative fluid dynamics.
  • Relativistic kinetic theory and non-equilibrium transport.
  • Phenomenology of high-energy heavy ion collisions.
  • Nuclear astrophysics and cosmology.
Anamitra Mukherjee

Strongly correlated electron systems and many body theory, please visit group homepage for details.

For a flavor of research acitivities in our group and by colleagues with similar interests in the area of strong correlation physics, materials theory and topology, please visit our weekly Journal Club webpage

Ashis Kumar Nandy
  • Non-trivial topology in magnetism: Skyrmion

  • Topology in band theory

  • Ab initio theory on transverse transport

  • Ultrafast dynamics in magnetic system

  • Strongly correlated electron systems

  • Quasicrystals modeling using Molecular Dynamics Simulation

  • GPU based coding: Spin simulator
Ashok Mohapatra

Ultra-cold atoms and Quantum Optics

Bedangadas Mohanty

Quantum Chromodynamic (QCD) phase diagram, Transport properties of QCD matter and various signatures of Quark Gluon Plasma.

Dark Matter Search

Chethan N Gowdigere

AdS-CFT correspondence, Calabi-Yau metrics, Black hole entropy, Black rings

Colin Benjamin

Recent Papers  

  • Theoretical nanoscale science
    1. Probing the topological character of superconductors via non-local Hanbury-Brown and Twiss correlations, Tusaradri Mohapatra, Subhajit Pal, Colin Benjamin, Phys. Rev. B 106, 125402 (2022).
    2. Finite-temperature quantum noise correlations as a probe for topological helical edge modes, Sachiraj Mishra and Colin Benjamin, Phys. Rev. B 108, 115301 (2023).
    3. Exciting odd frequency equal spin-triplet correlations at metal-superconductor interfaces, Subhajit Pal, Colin Benjamin, Phys. Rev. B 104, 054519 (2021).
    4. Honing in on a topological zero-bias conductance peak, Subhajit Pal and Colin Benjamin, 2024 J. Phys.: Condens. Matter 36 035601.
  •  Quantum information theory
    1. Impurity reveals distinct operational phases in quantum thermodynamic cycles, Aditya Prakash, Abhishek Kumar, Colin Benjamin, Phys. Rev E 106, 054112 (2022)
    2. Order from chaos in quantum walks on cyclic graphs, Abhisek Panda, Colin BenjaminPhys. Rev. A 104, 012204 (2021).
    3. Resolving degeneracies in Google search via quantum stochastic walks, Colin Benjamin, Naini Dudhe, Journal of Statistical Mechanics: Theory and Experiment (2024) 013402.
    4. Recurrent generation of maximally entangled single particle states via quantum walks on cyclic graphs, Dinesh K. Panda, Colin Benjamin, Phys. Rev. A (Letters) 108, L020401 (2023).
  • Game Theory
    1. The emergence of Cooperation in the thermodynamic limit, Colin Benjamin, Shubhayan Sarkar, Chaos, Solitons & Fractals 135, 109762 (2020).
    2. Nash equilibrium mapping vs Hamiltonian dynamics vs Darwinian evolution for some social dilemma games in the thermodynamic limit, Arjun Krishnan U M and Colin Benjamin, The European Physical Journal B 96: 105 (2023).
    3. Vaccination dilemma in the thermodynamic limit, Colin Benjamin, Arjun Krishnan U M, Chaos 33, 023132 (2023).
    4. Thermodynamic susceptibility as a measure of cooperative behavior in social dilemmas, Colin Benjamin, Aditya Dash, Chaos 30, 093117 (2020).

Research Impact

  1. Our recent publication in EPL (Euro Physics Letters) on Probing Majorana Bound States via Thermoelectric Transport, has been accorded the honor of being selected as an Editor's Choice Article for 2024, see Editor's Choice Articles - Europhysics Letters - IOPscience.
  2. Our paper "Recurrent generation of maximally entangled single particle states via quantum walks on cyclic graphs" has been published as a Letter in Phys. Rev. A.  
  3. A review paper on  "Quantum thermodynamic devices: from theoretical proposals to experimental reality" by  Nathan M. Myers, Obinna Abah, and Sebastian Deffner from the University of Maryland, LANL, Durham, UK and Sao Paulo, Brazil in arXiv: 2201.01740 devotes a subsection to our work and explains our paper on quantum Otto engine using magic-angle twisted bilayer graphene published in Phys. Rev. B 104, 125445  (2022) for a wider audience.
  4. A recent blog "Quantum Trick or Treat", cites our work: Order from chaos in quantum walks on cyclic graphs, Abhisek Panda, Colin Benjamin, Phys. Rev. A 104, 012204 (2021).
  5. AIP has found it newsworthy to accord our newly published article "Thermodynamic susceptibility as a measure of cooperative behavior in social dilemmas" in Chaos with a press release. The press release is interestingly titled "Betrayal or cooperation? Analytical investigation of behavior drivers" and comes with the following tag line- Using game magnetization and susceptibility in an analytic investigation of cooperation with infinite numbers of people. It has been picked up by some of the most prominent science news portals, like EurekAlert https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2020-09/aiop-boc090320.php
    also by PHYS.ORG https://phys.org/news/2020-09-betrayal-cooperation-analytical-behavior-drivers.html
    news(wise) https://www.newswise.com/articles/betrayal-or-cooperation-analytical-investigation-of-behavior-drivers
    7thSpace http://7thspace.com/headlines/1302715/betrayal_or_cooperation__analytical_investigation_of_behavior_drivers.html
    sciencenewsnet.in https://sciencenewsnet.in/betrayal-or-cooperation-analytical-investigation-of-behavior-drivers/
    and ScienceDaily https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/09/200908113235.htm
  6. Our new publication in "Chaos" has been accorded the honor of a featured article. It looks at the problem of cooperative behavior with a new tool, thermodynamic susceptibility. While magnetization, the net difference in the fraction of cooperators and defectors is an extremely good macroscopic measure of cooperative behavior, susceptibility is a more sensitive probe for microscopic behavior, e.g., observing small changes in a population adopting a certain strategy. 
  7. Our paper "The emergence of cooperation in the thermodynamic limit" has been published as a Letter to the Editor in Chaos, Solitons & Fractals.  
  8. Our recent research on reasons for cooperative behavior in the thermodynamic limit using the template of a Public goods game, published in Chaos: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Nonlinear Science has been selected as a featured article in Chaos.
  9. Our recent research on seeing a genuine Parrondo's paradox with quantum walks, published in EPL (Euro Physics Letters) has been featured in EPL Highlights of 2018.
  10. Our recent research on seeing a genuine Parrondo's paradox with quantum walks, published in Royal Society Open Science and EPL (Euro Physics Letters) has been featured in Live Science, a website devoted to the science geek, see Weird Paradox Says 2 Losses Equals a Win. And It Could Lead to Fast Quantum Computers by Marcus Woo.
  11. Our recent article "Playing a true Parrondo's game with a three-state coin on a quantum walk" published in EPL (Europhysics Letters) has been featured in PHYS.ORG, see Parrondo's paradox with a three-sided coin by Lisa Zyga, Phys.org feature.
  12. Our recent research on "Implementing Parrondo's paradox with two coin quantum walks", published in R. Soc. Open Sci. 5, 171599 (2018), has led to the development of limit laws for quantum walks showing Parrondo behavior by Grunbaum and Machida in "Some limit laws for quantum walks with applications to a version of the Parrondo paradox", arXiv:1803.04522
  13. Our recent research on a new approach to N-Player games using 1D Ising model, see "Emergence of Cooperation in the thermodynamic limit", arXiv:1803.10083 which is the first analytical correct result to be obtained for games in the thermodynamic limit, while the approach of Adami and Hintze, arXiv:1706.03058  which purports to do that is incorrect as we have shown and which has also been established by other groups, see the essay in the course on Emergence states of matter 569 at UIUC, Course Instructor: Nigel Goldenfeld, by P. Ralegankar, Understanding Emergence of Cooperation using tools from Thermodynamics.
  14. The work on fractional steps in the integer quantum Hall effect,  Nanotechnology 27, 385203 (2016), was featured in the Nanotechweb.org website, Nanotechweb.org LAB TALK Sep. 26, 2016.
  15. The work on Graphene Josephson qubit,  Phys. Rev. B 79, 155431 (2009), was featured in the Nanotechweb.org website, Belle Dume, Graphene ring hits qubit target, Nanotechweb.org, Technology update October 22nd, 2008.​

Thesis Supervised

  1. Rajdeep Tah, "What begets cooperation in the thermodynamic limit of repeated and quantum social dilemmas?", Master's (2024). He will join Florida State university as a Ph D student in July 2024.  He has three submitted manuscripts while working on his thesis with me.
  2. Bindia Panigrahi, "Studies in quantum walks,” Master's (2024) from FM University, Balasore. Bindia was a student from FM University, Balasore, who spent the final semester working in our group on her Master's thesis. 
  3. Ritesh Das, "Thermoelectric Probes for Majorana Fermions," Master's (2023). He has received Ph. D offers from Delft (Netherlands) and Nebraska-Lincoln (USA). He has one publication and two submitted manuscripts.
  4. Naini Dudhe, "On some applications of quantum stochastic walks," Master's (2022). She had three publications when she worked with me on her thesis. 
  5. Pravy Prerana, "Split-step quantum walks,” Master's (2022) from IISER, Berhampur. Pravy Prerana was a student from IISER, Berhampur, who spent the final year working in our group on her Master's thesis. 
  6. Subhajit Pal, "A spin flipper in the vicinity of a superconductor,” Ph.D. (2022). Next Position: Senior Project Associate, Theoretical Sciences Lab, SPS, NISER. Currently, Postdoctoral Fellow at IISER, Kolkata.
  7. Arjun Krishnan U M, "Nash equilibrium mapping versus Darwinian evolution: A case study of some social dilemmas in the thermodynamic limit," Master's (2021). He had two publications when she worked with me on her thesis.
  8. Pratyush K. Sahoo, “Quantum stochastic walks and its application in understanding photosynthetic complexes, graphs, and quantum neural networks,” Master's (2020) from IISER, Kolkata. Pratyush K. Sahoo was a student from IISER, Kolkata, who spent the final year working in our group on his Master's thesis. He had one publication.
  9. Abhisek Panda, “On quantum walks and quantum games,” Master's (2020). Abhisek Panda got the best thesis award in the School of Physical Sciences, NISER, for 2020. He had one publication.
  10. Aditya Dash, "Interpreting Susceptibility and Correlation in the thermodynamic limit of classical and quantum games", Master's (2019). He had two publications.
  11. Arjun Mani, "Studies on edge mode transport in quantum Hall, quantum spin Hall, and quantum anomalous Hall samples", Ph.D. (2018). Next Position: Postdoctoral Research Associate at Information Sciences Institute, University of Southern California, USA. Currently, SERB-NPDF at Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata.
  12. Shubhayan Sarkar, "The thermodynamic limit of classical and quantum games", Master's (2018). Currently Ph. D. student at Centre for Theoretical Physics, Polish Academy of Sciences, Poland. He had four publications.
  13. Jishnu Rajendran, "Quantum Walks in quantum games and quantum graphs", Master's (2017). Currently Ph. D. student in Condensed Matter Physics and Quantum Technology group at Department of Physics and Astronomy "E. Majorana", Università degli Studi di Catania, Catania, Italy. He had two publications.
  14. Nilesh Vyas, "Random strategies and the equilibrium solution of quantum games", Master's (2017). Currently Ph. D. student at Telecom ParisTech, Paris, France. He had one publication.
  15. Namit Anand, "Quantum games, walks, and algorithms", Master's (2016). Currently, Postdoctoral Researcher working in quantum information theory and quantum computation at the Quantum and AI Lab (QuAIL) at NASA Ames Research Center and KBR, NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, California, USA. He had one publication.
  16. Abhishek Kumar, "Weyl semimetal and superconductor junction", Master's (2016).
  17. Avradip Ghosh, "Thermoelectric effects in mesoscopic physics and spin transport", Master's (2016).

Research Grants

  1. Dept. of Science and Technology (Nanomission) grant on "Topology, spintronics and quantum computation with Dirac materials",  Govt. of India, Grant No. SR/NM/NS1101/2011, from Sep. 2013-Sep.2017. DST Nanomission, in its March 2017 review, rated the progress in this project as Very Good. 
  2. SCIENCE & ENGINEERING RESEARCH BOARD, DST, Government of India, grant on "Non-local correlations in nanoscale systems: Role of decoherence, interactions, disorder, and pairing symmetry", Grant No. EMR/2015/001836 from Jul. 2016-Jan. 2020.
  3. SCIENCE & ENGINEERING RESEARCH BOARD, DST, Government of India, MATRICS grant on "Nash equilibrium versus Pareto optimality in N-Player games", Grant No. MTR/2018/000070  from Mar. 2019-Mar. 2022.
  4. SCIENCE & ENGINEERING RESEARCH BOARD, DST, Government of India, Core research grant on "Josephson junctions with strained Dirac materials and their application in quantum information processing", Grant No. CRG/2019/006258  from Mar. 2020-Dec. 2023.
Joydeep Bhattacharjee

Computational Materials Scieince from first principles and model Hamiltonian

- magnetism, catalysis,  transport, topological protection of states in the lightest lowdimensional systems - graphene, hexgonal boron nitride, germanene , etc. and their hybrids 

- methods and applications for inexpensive computation and analysis of ground and excited states

INTRODUCTION:

With the aim of proposing new materials and methodologies towards solving some of the contemporary problems faced by humanity, such as, securing clean green energy resources and environment, our group focuses on computationally understanding electronic, optical and magnetic properties, and their interplay in primarily low-dimensional systems from first principles as well as model Hamiltonian. We compute and analyse electronic structure of the ground and excited states in layered structures made of the lightest of the elements known to self-assemble into extended structures in normal temperature and preassure, namely, boron, carbon, nitrogen, oxygen and the elements below them in the peridic table, within the frameworks of density functional theory with refinements to include self-energy corrections and correlations through mean-field approximation of Hubbard model.

Kartikeswar Senapati

Josephson Junctions for spin physics:

  • Ways to induce long range spin triplet supercurrents in JJs 
  • Detection of buried interface spin polarization using JJs 
  • Metallic spin glass physics using JJs 
  • Single molecule magnets using SQUIDs 

Superconducting materials and phenomena:

  • Single crystal superconducting nanowires 
  • Granular Josephson assemblies
  • Monolithic Superconductor-ferromagnet systems 
Kush Saha

• Dirac Physics in Topological Insulators and Graphene

• Dissipative effects in Topological materials

• Study of strong correlations in Ultracold Bosons

• Floquet topological phenomena

• Dissipative open quantum systems

• Quasicrystals

Luke Robert Chamandy
  • Accretion and jets during common envelope evolution
  • Orbital evolution and drag force during the common envelope phase
  • Common envelope events involving low mass stars, brown dwarfs and planets
  • Mean-field dynamos in galaxies
  • Cosmological evolution of galactic magnetic fields
  • Interstellar turbulence
Manoj Kumar

Statistical physics of complex and disordered magnetic systems, Out-of-equilibrium systems, Phase transitions and critical phenomena

Najmul Haque
  1. Physics of heavy-ion collisions and quark gluon plasma
  2. Application of thermal field theory to study hot and dense nuclear matter
  3. Equation of state of hot and dense nuclear matter
  4. Hot and dense nuclear matter in the presence of magnetic field.
  5. Chiral matrix model
Narayan Rana

High energy physics, Particle physics phenomenology, Perturbative corrections in QCD and EW theory, Scattering amplitudes, Feynman integrals

Prasanjit Samal

Electronic Structure Theoryc, Density Functional Methods & Computational Materials Science

Pratap Kumar Sahoo

Ion beam induced modification

Nanowires and nano-particle synthesis for photonic application

Nanophotonics/Plasmonics

 

Prolay Kumar Mal

Physics related to the Top quark and Beyond Standard Model (BSM) Higgs boson(s), at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC)

Sanjay Kumar Swain

CP violation (B-physics), Beyond Standard Model Physics, Neutrino oscillation

Satyaprasad P Senanayak

My groups research is majorly focused on scientific understanding of the charge transport and photo-physics of organic semiconductors, perovskites, self-assembled nano-structures and 2D materials. These unconventional semiconductors exhibit a rich variety of transport phenomena and disorder mechanisms which are not exhibited by conventional inorganic semiconductors such as silicon. Moreover, these semiconducting materials are also evolving as an alternative to conventional semiconductors. We utilize a range of electrical, spectroscopy, microscopy and structural characterization to obtain an understanding of the processes/instabilities in these materials. The fndamental understanding developed is then applied into developing high efficient photovoltaic, ultra-bright LEDs, low power flexible electronics and improved medical diagnostic technologies.

Shovon Pal

The conventional weakly correlated systems are often described by the interaction of a single electron with its environment, for example, semiconductors. In contrast, the properties of the so-called strongly correlated states are determined by the collective interaction of many electrons via their charges and spins. The complexity that arises from such interactions between many particles gives rise to many fascinating phenomena. This covers the long-range magnetic order to recent discoveries like superconductivity, colossal magnetoresistance, and topological magnetic or electric states. Owing to their multi-particle nature, the microscopic understanding of the ground state with such dominant strong-correlation phenomena is a demanding task. For a thorough understanding, it is thus indispensable, however, to go away from the ground state and study the dynamical behavior of such systems. 

On one hand, the functionality of a device always results from bringing it away from its ground state. Nevertheless, studying the non-equilibrium behavior of the ground state reveals the microscopic processes at work, stabilizing a strongly correlated state. Over the last years, various experimental and theoretical tools have been rapidly improving, and the field of strong-correlation dynamics is now in the process of establishing itself as a new and powerful branch in condensed-matter research. Because of the emerging nature of the field, research activities are still ambiguously diverse. Important advances are made in certain directions but at the same time, other aspects of crucial significance are disregarded -- an overarching coherence of the field yet needs to be established.

The broad scope and extent of our research direction in NISER is to substantially promote this overarching coherence and contribute to building a solid foundation in the field of strong correlation dynamics. The primary research topics involve, in a broad manner: (a) Coherent low-energy excitation of correlated states and (b) Studying phase-resolved dynamics of elementary excitations.

Subhankar Bedanta

Our broad research area is to study the properties of nanomagnetism and spintronics.

Magnetic domains and domain wall dynamics

  • Superferromagnetism,
  • Magnetic Antidot Lattices (MALs)
  • Antiferromagnetic Spintronics
  • Topological Insulators
  • Flexible spintronics
  • Skyrmionics in thin films
  • Organic spintronics
  • Ferrimagnetic spintronics
  • Spin Pumping via Inverse spin Hall effect (ISHE).
Sumedha

1. Disordered spin systems.

2. Stochastic processes in biology

3. Lattice models of polymers

4. Entropy driven phase transitions

5. Conformal bootstrap and critical phenomena.

6. Nonequilibrium Statistical Mechanics

7. Constraint Satisfaction problems from theoretical computer science.

 

Taniya Mandal

Applications of Machine Learning in Theoretical High Energy Physics,

Thermal Conformal Field Theory,

Thermodynamics of Black Holes in Supergravity, 

Relativistic and non-relativistic Hydrodynamics, 

Carrollian Hydrodynamics

Tuhin Ghosh

Cosmology with Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation

Dust Polarization

Primordial Gravitational waves

Cosmology with Thermal Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect

Galactic magnetic fields

Statistical tools in Cosmology

Filamentary structure of interstellar medium

V Ravi Chandra

1. Nature of low the temperature phases of magnets

with competing interactions.

2. Physics of dipolar interactions in geometrically frustrated magnets.

3. Study of the entanglement content of ground states of quantum magnets.

4. Computational approaches to lattice models.

Yogesh Kumar Srivastava

String Theory is currently the most developed approach to quantum gravity and a promising framework for the unification  of fundamental interactions. Apart from moving towards the long term goal of delivering a unified theory of quantum gravity and other interactions, string theory research has led to the development of tools and techniques which throw new light on problems in field theory, condensed matter physics, classical gravitation and mathematics.

Black Holes provide an intriguing arena in which to explore the  challenges posed by the interplay of general relativity and quantum mechanics. One of the great successes of string theory has been the successful 
explanation of Bekenstein-Hawking entropy formula (at least, for extremal and  near-extremal black holes) in terms of statistical degeneracy associated with different brane configurations in string theory have been working in the area of black holes in string theory for past few years. In the past, I have worked on understanding the properties of black holes using and developing the tools in string theory. Currently I am interested in holographic dualities, in particular, non-relativistic holography and microstate geometry program for black holes. In addition, various interesting problems in classical general relativity (especially higher dimensional GR) like horizon smoothness and singularity analysis continue to interest me.