IISc Bangalore - Arkya Chatterjee

I spent my second year summer as a research intern at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, in Prof. Sriram Ramaswamy’s group. My work was broadly in the area of theoretical non-equilibrium statistical mechanics.

Background

Prior to this internship, I had been working on a project (under Prof. Amitabha Nandi) on the modelling of collective motion in self-propelled particle systems. So, in a way, I already had some exposure, albeit limited, to this relatively new field of research called ‘active matter’, and had developed quite a bit of interest in the work. This led me to apply to soft condensed matter physics groups around the world.

The apping experience is something that only those who have done it can explain. After weeks of writing emails, and applying for scholarship programs, I ended up getting accepted for the Indian Science Academies’ summer research fellowship program, which provided funding for me to take up the position offered by my prof.

The Group

The group, led by Prof. Ramaswamy, has 5 PhD students and one postdoc, some of them working in collaboration with other professors, both in and outside the institute. Their work is based on answering questions related to various aspects of nonequilibrium, soft matter and biological physics.

My Work

The problem I was assigned has a bit of history, tracing its way back to a theorem proved by Niels Bohr and Hendrika van Leeuwen. In essence, they proved that magnetism cannot be accounted for just by considering classical statistical mechanics. An acceptable theory of magnetism was only possible once the foundations of quantum mechanics were laid out, thereby vindicating the Bohr-van Leeuwen theorem. Fast forward a few decades, as out-of-equilibrium systems started receiving some attention, some physicists started asking the question: what if the system studied by Bohr and van Leeuwen was constantly being driven out of equilibrium, by ‘active’ forces? As it turns out, a really comprehensive answer to this question has been provided by a recent paper. Parallel to this, some people have been wondering whether an effective thermodynamic framework could be developed for active systems such as the one above, thereby quantifying (to some extent) exactly how far away from equilibrium a particular driven system is.

My project was to delve deeper into this last question, with respect to an active ‘Bohr-van Leeuwen’ type system, as described above, i.e. a collection of charged particles undergoing Brownian motion in presence of a constant transverse magnetic field, and an active driving force.

The basic prerequisites for my project were statistical mechanics and stochastic differential equations. Towards the end, I also had to read up some material related to relatively specialised topics such as linear response theory, and stochastic thermodynamics.

Life in Bangalore

The Academy had arranged for the summer students to stay at one of their guest houses, which was around 3-4 km from IISc campus. Besides, they provided daily shuttle services to and from the campus (which saved me a lot of hassle).

In terms of city life, Bangalore is very similar to Mumbai, except probably with better weather. In particular, the IISc campus neighbourhoods abound in extremely affordable restaurants and pubs, which make for frequent treats :P.

One of the major highlights of my stay in Bangalore was attending a Poets of the Fall concert. Being a big fan of their music (no, not just Carnival of Rust), this was just the cherry on the cake for me.

Conclusion

Though I won’t throw the cliche “this was the best summer of my life” line, these two months were definitely a great learning experience for me. Besides getting a first-hand exposure to how research in theoretical physics is done, I also got to make some great friends. Definitely a fruitful way to spend the summer :D.

Thanks for reading!

IISc’s iconic JRD Tata statue

Pizza time!