DAMP Physics, IITB

"Ask Me Anything!" with Prof. Archana Pai Prof. Archana Pai has been working with gravitational waves since 1996, when she started her PhD with the legendary Prof. Sanjeev Dhurandhar. At that time, in her words, “we were working as mathematicians - injecting compact coalescent binary signals and trying to detect them with our algorithms, essentially doing work ‘of the future’, which would be realized almost 20 years later.” Today, she is a member of the LIGO collaboration and has worked with the VIRGO collaboration, and is also a key member of the LIGO India effort. Her current research interests are statistical signal processing of gravitational wave signals, detection and astrophysics of gravitational waves from binary black holes with interferometric detectors and multi-messenger astronomy. What do you think will be the next big thing in your field? How do you plan to be a part of it? Observations of binary black hole merger events in gravitational wave w...

"Ask Me Anything!" with Prof. Gopal Dixit Research Interests :   Our research group focuses on probing ultrafast processes in nature on attosecond and femtosecond timescales. Our research interest include: 1. Four Dimensional Imaging of Electronic Motion : The motion of atoms within molecule and solid that is associated with physical and chemical transformations occurs on femtosecond timescale, whereas the electronic motion can be even faster, on the order of attoseconds timescale. In order to understand the functionality and dynamic behavior of ultrafast physical, and chemical processes completely, it is essential to have a complete four-dimensional imaging (three spatial and one temporal) of electronic motion with sub-angstrom spatial and few-femtoseconds to several hundreds of attoseconds temporal resolutions, respectively, in real-space and in real-time. Moreover, imaging and manipulating the electronic motion on ultrafast timescale provide novel pathways towa...

"Ask Me Anything!" with Prof. Sai Vinjanampathy Research Interests :   I am interested in understanding quantum physics and applying it to future quantum technologies. Though many of you have heard of quantum computers, the areas of future technology where quantum mechanics can make a difference are numerous. What physicists are doing now in this emergent technology area is to chalk out what the physics of these devices should be such that they outperform their classical counterparts. I divide this research interest into three broad areas: quantum information theory (QIT), quantum control theory (QCT) and quantum thermodynamics (QTh). I currently teach a course in QIT in the department, so I presume not much introduction is needed for this topic. In QIT, I am currently mainly interested in measuring and characterising memory (non-Markovianity) in quantum systems. In QCT, I work on a variety of problems related to realistic experimental design, trying to design fas...