Abstract: Quantum entanglement has come of age now, from the debates of Bohr, Einstein and Schrodinger to the Optics table. The talk will foolishly try to give a panoramic view, from nonlocality and many-body physics to how it helped some Officers of Euler from the 18th century overcome a somewhat sticky situation.

Abstract: The visible part of the present Universe is composed of matter or baryons only with negligible trace of anti-matter. As the Universe is expected to start out with as much antimatter as matter, the present observation has led to the longstanding puzzle of baryon asymmetry of Universe. This talk will cover some mechanisms of generating such matter-antimatter asymmetry dynamically while also briefly discussing the role that could be played by dark matter which dominates the total matter content of the present Universe.

The nuclear matter at the core of Neutron star is under extreme density, nuclear matters under such high density are believed to undergo a transition from hadronic to deconfined Quark Gluon Plasma (QGP) phase, Such a state of nuclear matters are to be created in laboratories by colliding two heavy nuclei at high energies A status report of such investigations will be presented

Recently, a new class of antiferromagnets, also known as altermagnets, has been proposed that exhibit non-relativistic spin-splitting in contrast to the conventional antiferromagnets with degenerate up and down spin-polarized bands. Taking the example of prototypical non-relativistic spin-split centrosymmetric antiferromagnet rutile MnF2, in my talk, I will show that the non- relativistic spin-splitting is conveniently described in terms of the ferroic ordering of magnetic octupoles. Using density-functional and model calculations, we show that the magnetic octupole is the lowest-order ferroically ordered magnetic quantity in this case, and so is the natural order parameter for the transition into the magnetically ordered state. They provide a unified description of the broken time-reversal symmetry and the non-relativistic spin splitting as well as a platform for manipulating the latter and account for other phenomena, such as piezomagnetism, characteristic of this class of antiferromagnets. Unusually for antiferromagnets, we show that the magnetic octupoles cause a non-zero magnetic Compton scattering, providing also a route for their direct experimental detection.

Abstract: Graphene’ or a single layer of graphite, is a two-dimensional (2D) sheet of carbon atoms, that has captured the attention of physicists, engineers and material scientists for nearly two decades. When two layers of graphene are rotated with respect to each other, a fascinating interference structure called the ‘moiré’ pattern is created. The moiré has profound implications on the material properties of the underlying system, leading to exotic physics including superconductivity and magnetism. In this talk I shall introduce you to the world of moire graphene and further discuss some of the fascinating phases we have recently studied in these systems.

Intermediate mass black holes have been elusive sources in observational astronomy. GW190521 was the first confident binary black hole merger event with the remnant as an intermediate-mass black hole (IMBH) detected by LIGO-Virgo detectors. The discovery was unique and posed pertinent questions on the possibility of the massive black hole formation. With improved sensitivity, we expect to observe similar signals in the ongoing observational run. Observation of IMBH binaries has immense potential to probe the hierarchical merger scenario and the IMBH binary formation channels. Due to the peculiar signal morphology, detecting and estimating astrophysical parameters of such massive black hole binaries pose several challenges in gravitational wave astronomy. The talk will highlight the discovery and detection strategies for intermediate-mass black hole binaries.

Terahertz (THz) metasurfaces, adept at manipulating electromagnetic waves at subwavelength scales, are poised to revolutionize photonics in the next generation. Through smart design processes, one can achieve broadband response, holding immense potential to revolutionize various fields, including communication systems, imaging technologies, and sensing platforms, ushering in a new era of terahertz-enabled photonics innovations. In my talk, I will delve into the intricacies of designing planar and stacked metasurfaces, examining the challenges inherent in their fabrication and implementation for broadband applications. While planar metasurfaces offer simplicity in fabrication and integration, achieving broadband performance remains a significant hurdle. Stacked metasurfaces, on the other hand, provide enhanced bandwidth and functionality but face challenges in precise alignment and layer control. Addressing these design considerations is pivotal for realizing metasurfaces capable of operating across a broad range of terahertz frequencies. Moreover, active tunability emerges as a promising solution for overcoming the limitations of passive metasurfaces. Incorporating phase-change materials enables metasurfaces to dynamically modulate terahertz signals across a broad frequency spectrum. My talk will also spotlight the design challenges in creating active broadband modulators and their applications in next- generation photonics.

I will first discuss the new and emerging field of the Physics of Life which deals with the study of living systems viewed through the lens of physics. I will illustrate this view through a few examples taken from our work. Living systems exemplify matter that is driven out-of-equilibrium at the microscopic scale, violating time reversal symmetry. I will first discuss the radical consequences of such time reversal symmetry breaking on field theories that describe the physical properties the cell membrane. This has profound implications for the functional organisation of chemical composition on the cell surface at nano and meso scales. I will then discuss the fidelity of decoding and (encoding) information in distributed cellular systems, in the context of positional inference from a morphogen gradient in a developing embryo. This will point to some general features of high dimensional optimisation in cellular networks, in particular dimensional reduction and the emergence of many sloppy directions. I will argue that these generic features of cellular networks are a consequence of modularity and localisation.

Abstract: In this talk, I shall give an overview of some of our recent work on suspensions driven far from equilibrium. I shall focus mainly on the initiation and propagation of cracks in desiccating suspension layers, and the growth of interfacial instabilities due to the displacement of colloidal and granular suspensions by Newtonian fluids in confined geometries. I hope to also highlight our attempts to understand our results using simple theoretical models.