DAMP Physics, IITB

Instructor Name Amitabha Nandi Course Type Honours/Elective (Core for DD) Course overview One Dimensional Flow, Bifurcations, Phase diagrams, Limit Cycles, Lorenz Equations, Chaotic Attractors, One Dimensional Maps, introduction to renormalization group theory Prerequisites No formal or informal prerequisites Credit distribution There was one quiz (15%), a midsem (30%) and an endsem (40%). Apart from that, there was a project, worth 15% of the grade. The topic could either be chosen by the student (after approval from the prof), or from a pool of suggested topics. Feedback on Lectures The lectures were extremely interesting, it really felt like the professor was giving his best. The lectures were blackboard based, so fast notetaking soon became the norm. Feedback on tutorials, assignments and exams The assignments were fairly tricky, towards the end. All the assignments were ungraded. Class notes (no printed material) was allowed in all the exams....

Temporal characterization of Attosecond pulses. Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics (MPIK), Heidelberg, Germany. Work I joined the Quantum Dynamics and Control division at MPIK for 10 weeks for my summer internship. Ultrafast optics is useful in studying processes in nature which happen on a very small time scale. With the discovery of High Harmonic Generation it is possible to generate ultrashort Laser pulses with attosecond duration. But these pulses are of no use if they are not characterized before using them to observe other phenomenon (like observing Photoionization time delay). My work dealt with characterizing an attosecond time scale pulse in time domain so as to identify the intensity, phase variation and length (FWHM) of the pulse. For the first few weeks I read about algorithms used to characterize these pulses and discussed them with other PhD students in the group. I was assigned one particular PhD student whom I had already been corresponding with 2 months...

My search for a summer intern began in a pretty generic way: seeking professors working in the field of my interest, sending out probably a couple of hundred e-mails, and applying through some centralised programs. While I ended up working in something I didn’t originally want to, it was a good experience in retrospect. I worked in Cosmology at Kansas State University, USA. The task consisted of deriving constraints on parameters of a dynamical Dark Energy model which my professor had theorized. It required some basic understanding in Cosmology like Perturbation Theory, BAO and a teenie bit of Scalar Field Theory. Through most of it, I worked on reproducing some of the previous research in the area and I worked with some new data in the last 30 days. In spite of working in what was mainly data analysis, I was interested in doing HEP theory, and a month into my intern, I found out that my professor had completed his PhD in Semiclassical Quantisation of Gravity (yay!). Since my i...

Instructor Madhav Desai Course Type Core for EP students Course overview Boolean Algebra, Sequential Circuits, Finite-State Machines, Timing Analysis, Testability and verification, RTL design. Memories, VHDL synthesis. Prerequisites No formal prerequisites. Informal prerequisite: EE112 Credit distribution 2 quizzes (10% each), 1 midsem (30%) and 1 endsem (50%) Feedback on Lectures Attendance was not compulsory. The lectures are blackboard based, and a little superficial, extra reading is recommended. Feedback on tutorials, assignments and exams Assignments were ungraded, and of average difficulty. Exam problems were of a similar nature. Relevant References Switching and finite automata theory by Zvi Kohavi and N.K. Jha Digital Electronics by Kleitz Pro-tips Attend class, and pay attention. It may feel like an unnecessary engineering course to quite a few, but modern electronics is primarily digital, and it's pretty interesti...

I worked as a Summer Research Intern à la Université du Luxembourg. My primary area of research was Non-Equilibrium Transport. Background Before applying for this position, I worked as a freelance developer and worked on computational astrophysics projects . In my fifth semester, I was applying for internship positions in two different areas. The first were game development companies in Mumbai and the US. Second, astronomy and astrophysics departments all around the world.  A lot of places in India might have provided me a better professional work exposure in some specific research areas . But going abroad for an internship is also a cultural experience, and deserves advantage of choice .  I did not have luck with my applications before I got the offer for Luxembourg. This was an application I filled through the PT cell. The group works in the area of mesoscopic physics. They are aligned towards theory and far from my primary interests. I sta...

Instructor Name Raghunath Chelakkot Course Type Core for EP students (Half-sem) Course overview Basic Concepts of Thermodynamics (State variables, equilibria in systems,different types of processes, heat engines and refrigerators), Entropy, Euler and Gibbs Duhem Relations, Maximum Work Theorem, Maxwell Relations, Stability of Systems, Introduction to phase transitions Prerequisites No formal or informal prerequisites. Credit distribution Quiz 1-15 marks,  Final Exam-35 marks, Total-50 marks Feedback on Lectures Attendance not compulsory, classes on blackboard, with some portion like introduction and Phase transitions covered using slides Feedback on tutorials, assignments and exams Regular good tutorial sheets, no assignments for submissions. Relevant References Thermodynamics and Introduction to Thermostatistics - Herbert Callen Heat and thermodynamics - M. Zemansky, R Dittman : especially for the introductory portion on temperature s...

Instructor Name Prof. S Sivaji Ganesh, Prof. S. Baskar Course Type Core for EP students Course overview Error Analysis : Floating-point representation, propagation of errors, 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 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 methods for numerically approximating integrals and derivatives were discussed, along with the errors for the same Numerical ...