Speaker: Smitha Vishveshwara
TITLE: "Explorations in Condensed Matter Physics."ABSTRACT: In the past decade, several exciting developments have taken place in the study of systems of strongly-interacting particles at low temperatures. Following a brief survey of key concepts which make this "condensed matter" study challenging, a few specific examples will be discussed at a popular science level. These examples will include the quantum Hall system and Bose-Einstein condensates, two major arenas in which quantum mechanics gives rise to intriguing and spectacular phenomena.
BIOGRAPHY: Professor Smitha Vishveshwara received her bachelor's degree in physics magna cum laude from Cornell University in 1996, and her Ph.D in theoretical physics from the University of California, Santa Barbara, in 2002. She served as a postdoctoral research associate with Paul Goldbart and Tony Leggett from 2002 to 2005, working on tunneling and fractional statistics in quantum Hall systems, Aharonov-Bohm effects in carbon nanotubes (as reported in Science), and critical dynamics in charged superconductors. She joined the department as an assistant professor in August 2005.
Professor Vishveshwara's research interests span a broad range of topics in theoretical condensed matter physics, and she maintains strong collaborative ties with experimentalists. Over the next few years, she plans to extend ongoing projects, to expand her research into problems involving ultracold atoms trapped in optical lattices, electronic properties of single-walled nanotubes, and exotic features of quantum Hall states.