Research  Interests

Mainly in strongly correlated systems and statistical mechanics especially emergent and out-of-equilibrium aspects of many-body physics. Recent focus areas include:

• Frustrated magnets and spin liquids.
• Unconventional phase transitions.
• Nonequilibrium quantum dynamics and phases.
• Numerical many-body physics (Monte Carlo algorithms etc).
• Spin systems with constrained Hilbert spaces and lattice gauge theories. 

Some recent talks:

• Quantum scars in many-body systems, at TIFR (March, 2021) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WjVIj1ZZPsY
• Disorder in a classical spin liquid, at ICTS (December, 2019) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-0m9aibZmI
• Aperiodically driven integrable systems and their emergent steady states, at ICTS (August, 2017) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a4R_ZlUYKCs
• Dynamics of entanglement generation in driven integrable systems, at ICTS (February, 2016) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pLmFzbcjbZU

Academic Profile

Education

• B. Sc. (Hons.), St. Stephen's College (2000-2003).
• M. Sc. (by thesis) and Ph.D., Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (2003-2009).
• M.Sc. Thesis: Deconfined quantum critical points (Advisor: Prof. Kedar Damle) [pdf file]
• Ph.D. Thesis: Frustrated antiferromagnets with easy axis anisotropy (Advisor: Prof. Kedar Damle) [pdf file]

Current Academic Appointment

• Associate Professor, Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science (2018-Present).

Past Academic Appointments

• Assistant Professor, Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science (2013-2018).
• Postdoctoral Fellow in Condensed Matter Group at MPIPKS (2011-2013).
• Research Associate in Condensed Matter Theory Group, Boston Universsity (2009-2011).

Current Group Members:

• Indrajit Sau (PhD Student; Institute Fellow)
• Mainak Pal (PhD Student; Institute Fellow)

Past Group Members:

• Anindya Biswas (Postdoc, RA II; Institute Fellow)
• Swarup Ghosh (Masters Project Student)
• Sourav Nandy (PhD Student; Institute Fellow) (Ph.D. received from Calcutta University on September 16, 2020) -> postdoc at IIT Bombay [pdf file of Sourav's thesis]
• Tushar Kanti Bose (Postdoc, RA 1, Institute Fellow) -> Faculty at Srikrishna College, Bagula, West Bengal
• Sutapa Samanta (Postdoc, RA 1, Institute Fellow) -> postdoc at Western Washington University, USA

At IACS:

• PHS 4204: Statistical Mechanics, Spring Semester 2022 (M.Sc core course at IACS).
• PHS 4204: Statistical Mechanics, Spring Semester 2021 (M.Sc. core course at IACS).
• PHS 4204: Statistical Mechanics, Spring Semester 2020 (M.Sc. core course at IACS).
• PHS 4204: Statistical Mechanics, Spring Semester 2019 (M.Sc. core course at IACS).
• Condensed Matter Physics II (co-instructor, Krishnendu Sengupta), Autumn Semester 2017 (Ph.D. course).
• Statistical Mechanics II (focus on Monte-Carlo algorithms for correlated systems), Autumn Semester 2016 (Ph.D. course).
• Statistical Mechanics II, Autumn Semester 2015 (Ph.D. course).
• Statistical Mechanics II, July-December 2014 (Ph.D. course).

Lecture slides/videos:

• Set of five lectures on "Non-equilibrium and periodically driven quantum systems" given for XII Bangalore School on Statistical Physics during July 5-9, 2021 (Lec 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O8XpdMMKZFs) (Lec 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7WGRhaIVe0) (Lec 3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NslFQSqqEn8) (Lec 4: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQnvQDHwT6k) (Lec 5: https://youtube.com/watch?v=Y17a_3TspTI) Lecture Slides can be accessed from (https://www.icts.res.in/event/page/21497)
• Set of eight lectures on Quantum Statistical Mechanics given at a Refresher Course in Statistical Physics (organized by the three Science Academies in India) during December 9-23, 2018 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cIJ8NGIWGD0&list=PLHj8FDqJ7gWqo7cUJBWr7_Q8C7ULL6Grc
• Slides and video of tutorial talk on Numerical approaches to frustrated magnets (The 2nd Asia Pacific Workshop on Quantum Magnetism, ICTS,  November 29, 2018) [pdf] (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLdXkEbidr4)

Lecture notes from the School on algorithms in lattice gauge theory and spin systems held at IACS can be found here [https://sites.google.com/site/algolgtss20/]

Videos of lectures from the School on frustrated magnetism held at IMSc can be found here [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P0ecFAWPIOM&list=PLhkiT_RYTEU3Q06ytIMV0RwAOaaKTdUWw&index=1]

• Faculty Associate of the International Center for Theoretical Sciences, TIFR, Bangalore (2022--)
• Member of the Advisory Panel of the journal Physica Scripta (2018 to 2021).
• Young Associate in the Department of Physics, RKMVU (2018 to 2020).
• Young Scientist Medal awarded by the Indian National Science Academy (2017).
• Head of Max Planck Partner Group at IACS [with MPIPKS, Dresden] (2015-2020).
• JSPS (Japan)--DST (India) special lecture tour program (January, 2015).
• Geeta Udgaonkar Award for best Ph.D. thesis in Physical Sciences at TIFR (2010).
• St. Stephen's College-Sumitomo Corporation Scholarship (2001-2003).
• Kishore Vaigyanik Protsahan Yojana Fellowship, Government of India (2001-2003).

Contact

Arnab Sen

Office: C-420, Centenary Building
Department of Theoretical Physics,
Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science,
2A&2B Raja S C Mullick Road,
Kolkata 700032.
Phone: +91-33-2473-4971 (Extn: 2283)
Email: tpars@iacs.res.in