Details of PH3206 (Spring 2014)

Level: 3 Type: Project Credits: 3.0

Course CodeCourse NameInstructor(s)
PH3206 Reading Course Arindam Kundagrami,
Prasanta K. Panigrahi

Syllabus
The Reading Course(s) for the 1st year IPhD students in Physics are aimed at the basics (on topics such as Quantum Mechanics, Statistical Mechanics, Classical Mechanics, Mathematical Methods in Physics etc) of the subject.

The level of the course is expected to be comparable to the level of 1st year IPhD core courses (3rd year BS-MS) or may be slightly advanced depending on the exposure and aptitude of the student.


Prerequisite
The regulations are:


  1. A Reading Course will be made of TWO parts. Duration of each part will be 6 weeks (1 and 1/2 months), so that each IPhD student can interact with two faculty members in a semester.This will give them an option to interact with a few faculty members before they choose their MS/PhD supervisor on 3rd/4th semester.

  2. Reading courses can be structured assuming that IPhD students know the basic physics, and the topics of the reading courses should be different from the offered courses in their curriculum.

  3. Regarding the final evaluation of the student a written document should be submitted to DoAA. (Final evaluation can be regular or take home exam or presentation in front of the course instructor and another faculty member. In that case case the hard copy of the presentation can be considered as a written document).

  4. Faculty interested to offer a half-semester Reading Course for IPhD (1st year) students, must submit the following to the Syllabus Coordinator and Chair before the courses go online each semester: a) Title, and b) Syllabus (short, 5-6 lines). Without a syllabus nothing exists and it will not be practically possible to consider any course for this option.

  5. Maximum TWO students can take the the (half semester) Reading Course with one faculty.

  6. Students NEED to find the available syllabus from the list below, contact the instructor, and with his permission register for the Reading Course. Private communications with a prospective instructor will not be counted as registration.

  7. Before the final deadline, the student must submit the Student's Name, Instructor's Name, Title, Syllabus, & Signature of the Instructor in a piece of paper to the Syllabus Coordinator of DPS.


THE OFFERED (HALF)-COURSES ARE:


  1. Field theoretic methods for ultracold quantum gases

    Syllabus:

    1. Introduction: Experiments on cold atoms, different time scales and energy scales, Bose-Einstein condensation (BEC) of non-interacting bosons
    2. Broken symmetry approach to BEC of interacting system: Order
      parameter, macroscopic wavefunction, phase coherence
    3. Classical field description of the condensate: Gross-Pitaevskii
      (non-linear Schrodinger) equation and its time dependent generalisation.

    4. Quantum phase transition of lattice bosons: Bose-Hubbard model, uperfluid-Mott insulator transition, effective field theory near the quantum critical point (intro only)

    5. Pairing in two component Fermions: BCS theory and a short
      introduction to BCS-BEC crossover

    References:

    1. Introduction to Many Body Physics: Piers Coleman
    2. Bose-Einstein Condensation , L. Pitaevskii and S. Stringari
    3. Quantum Liquids: Bose Condensation and Cooper Pairing in
      Condensed-Matter Systems , A. J. Leggett

    Instructor: Subhasis Sinha

  2. Hamilton-Jacobi Equation and its application

    Syllabus:

    1. Basics conversation law.
    2. Separability of equation of motion and wave equation
    3. Basic of H-J equation
    4. Application for charged particle motion in dipole field.
    5. Carter theorem on separability and conservation

    Instructor: Rajesh K. Nayak

  3. Differential geometry and topology for physicists

    Syllabus:

    1. Basic notions of topology
    2. Manifolds, Differential structure on manifolds.
    3. The tangent and cotangent bundles,Connection with classical mechanics.
    4. Homotopy, fundamental group and higer homotopy groups, connections with the
      topological theory of defects.
    5. Differential forms and exterior algebra. The formulation of electrodynamics in the
      language of forms
    6. Cohomology groups
    7. Fiber bundles and the connection with Yang-Mills theories.

    References:

    1. C. Nash and S. Sen : Topology and differential geometry for physicists, Dover, 2011.

    Instructor: Ananda Dasgupta

  4. Structure and properties of soft matter systems

    Syllabus: Review of Statistical Mechanics, Phase Transitions, Structure Factor, Polymers, Liquid Crystals,
    Colloids.\\
    Instructor: Arindam Kundagrami

  5. Damped driven systems from harmonic to an harmonic ones

    Syllabus:

    1. Damped driven oscillator (DDS).
    2. Non-linear driven systems.
    3. Application to BEC and cold fermions.

    Instructor: Prasanta Panigrahi

  6. Mechanics of continuous media

    Instructor: Narayan Banerjee

  7. Electron-Molecule Collision Dynamics

    Syllabus:

    1. Basic electron-molecule collisions
    2. Fundamental of scattering theory
    3. Vacuum techniques
    4. Experimental techniques
    5. Velocity Slice Imaging spectroscopy
    6. A case study

    Instructor: Dhananjay Nandi

References

Course Credit Options

Sl. No.ProgrammeSemester NoCourse Choice
1 IP 2 Elective
2 IP 4 Not Allowed
3 MR 2 Elective
4 MR 4 Not Allowed
5 MS 6 Not Allowed
6 RS 1 Not Allowed
7 RS 2 Not Allowed