DAMP Physics, IITB

Hi there folks! Abhisek from third year EP B.tech program here. This summer I took a UG research position at the Institute for Quantum computing at Waterloo, Canada. In this article, I plan to pen down my summer internship experience! Most of it would be factual, some of it might be subjective and overall, I hope this gives you some idea about what is it like, doing research, especially in Quantum Physics. The article is organised in the following manner: In section 1, I briefly describe my work here, the skills I learnt etc. In section 2, I focus on the overall research experience in Waterloo. In section 3, I write about the other fun (non-academic) stuff. Section 4 contains information about the process of securing the position, logistics etc. In section 5, I conclude with my major take-aways from this experience. What have I been up to? My project was about designing optical implementation of a quantum cryptographic protocol and was done in Prof. Norbert Lütkenhaus ’ ...

Course Name: MA 412: Complex Analysis Credits: 8 Course Type: Theory Course Instructor: Prof. Akhil Ranjan Prerequisites: Real Analysis (MA 403) Important Topic Covered: Complex numbers; notions of limit, continuity, differentiability in the context of complex functions; multi-valued functions, branches, branch cuts; Laurent series, meromorphic functions, poles; Cauchy's integral formula, contour integrals, applications to real integrals; argument principle, Rouche's theorem Useful Books: Functions of One Complex Variable [John Conway] Lectures: No attendance requirement. Blackboard only. Assignments: Selected questions were discussed from the weekly tutorial sheets in the tutorial sessions. No assignments. Exams and Grading: A total of 4 quizzes were held, out of which best 3 were considered for a total weightage of 30%. The rest of the weightage was in midsem (30%) and endsem (40%). Exam questions were mostly calculation-based, with very limite...

Instructor Name: Sivaji Ganesh and S Baskar Course Type: Theory (Core) No. of credits: 8 Course Code: MA214 Semester: Spring Pre-requisites: No formal prerequisites Informal - MA105, MA106, MA108 Course Content: Error Analysis: Floating-point representation, propagation of errors, the stability of computation  Numerical Linear Algebra: Solving linear system, matrix factorization, locating eigenvalue of matrix, algebraic and iterative methods Nonlinear Equations: Closed and open domain iterative schemes to approximate solution of the nonlinear equation were discussed. This included bisection, secant, Newton-Raphson, and fixed-point methods, along with a discussion of the order of accuracy of some of these methods. Interpolation - Finding an interpolating polynomial given a set of data points and errors, and analysis of the accuracy of the various interpolation methods. Newton and Lagrange form of interpolation were covered. Numerical calculus: Various m...

Instructor Name: Sumiran Pujari Course Type: Theory (Core) No. of credits: 6 Course Code:   PH 310 Semester: Spring Pre-requisites: Formal: None Informal: QM 1, QM 2, it also uses a lot of concepts from statistical mechanics which is done along the course Course Content: Specific Heats of Solids, Electrons in Metals (Drude and Sommerfield Theory) 1D Toy Models (Vibrations and Tight Binding Models) Crystal Structures, Reciprocal Lattices, Brillouin Zones Diffraction from Solids, Bloch's Theorem, Semiconductor Physics Berry Phases and it's application in Condensed Matter Sytems Other topics covered: Books: 1. The Oxford Solid State Basics (By Steven H. Simon) This book is beyond amazing. The author describes everything in the exact amount of detail that the first course of CMP requires. There are solutions available to the problem sets in the book which are also useful to understand the concepts. The books are also complemented by a...

Instructors:  P Ramadevi Course name: Elementary particle physics Course code:  PH 540 Course type:  Theory (elective) Credits:  6 Pre-requisites: QM 1 and 2 is a must, QM 3 also helps. Course content: Introduction to the four interactions in nature, motivation for unification, Relativistic Kinematics, Parity, charge conjugation and angular momentum conservation, the quark model, fermions and bosons categorization, Feynman rules for you model and QED, Weinberg-Salam-Glashow model. Other topics: Books: Elementary Particle Physics by David Griffiths Online study material: Lectures: The prof usually taught on board but also used slides occasionally. Assignments,e xams and grading: There were regular tutorial sheets given, from which some problems had to be solved and submitted as assignments. Assignments: 10% One quiz: 10% Midsem: 30% Endsem: 40% Presentation on a related topic: 10 % Follow up courses: Pro tips: Personal comments: The prof's teach...

Course Name: GNR652:  Machine Learning for Remote Sensing-I Credits: 6 Course Type: Theory (Institute Elective) Course Instructor: Biplab Banerjee Lectures: Slides based teaching Assignments: 3 coding assignments which were fairly easy. Exams: Midsem 22.5 marks, Endsem 35 marks, project 27 marks Pro Tips: Almost all the questions in the exams are from the slides, so read the slides religiously. 

Intern Experience Summer - 2019   Mekhala Paranjpe H.H. Wills Physics Laboratory, University of Bristol, United Kingdom Process of Securing the Intern: There was an IAF that appeared at the beginning of February on the PT cell. It had three preferences for experiments in high energy physics going on at the University. For my year, the process was fairly simple. I simply had to sign up with a preference order and got selected for a Skype interview after the first shortlist, which I cleared. After the selection, I was offered a choice of two of those projects of which I chose the one that matched our summer vacation timeline. Work: I worked to interface the electron detector environment using temperature and humidity sensors, with the MIDAS data acquisition system through a Raspberry Pi. This was a part of the prototype design of the detector for the Mu3e Experiment. The experiment is driven from the Paul Scherrer Institute in Switzerland, and involves twelve to...

Instructor:  Prof. Subhrata Dhar Course Name:  Physics of Quantum Devices ( EP 426 ) Course Type:  Core Credits:  6 Pre-requisites:   Introduction to Condensed Matter Physics Course Content:   1. Basic semiconductor physics Energy vs k, Effective mass, electrons and holes: Semiconductor statistics, fermi level, Density of states, Intrinsic, extrinsic and compensated semiconductors 2. Quantum well, quantum wires, quantum dots, superlattice and their energy levels and density of states. 3. Hetero-interface MOS structures, accumulation, inversion regimes single heterojunction: modulation doping, 2D electron gas formation 4. Carrier transport in quantum structures Low field transport: Boltzmann transport equation, scattering rates in 2D and 1D, mobility, diffusion Quantum transport, Landauer formula 5. Electronic devices based on quantum heterostructures Field effect transistors: basic principle, MOSFET, heterostructure FET, Tunnel diode...