Vedika Khemani
Vedika Khemani (born 1988) is an Indian-American physicist and Assistant Professor at Stanford University. Her research considers many-body systems and condensed matter physics. She was awarded the 2021 American Physical Society George E. Valley Jr. Prize.
Vedika Khemani | |
|---|---|
| Alma mater | Princeton University Harvey Mudd College La Martiniere Calcutta |
| Scientific career | |
| Thesis | Quantum order, entanglement and localization in many body systems. (2016) |
| Doctoral advisor | Shivaji Sondhi |
Early life and education edit
Khemani was born in India and was educated through high-school at La Martiniere Calcutta. She moved to the United States to study physics at Harvey Mudd College, where she completed a senior thesis on gravitational holography. Her undergraduate thesis was awarded the Thomas Benjamin Brown Memorial Award. Alongside her physics course, Khemani completed courses in economics, linguistics and creative writing.[1] She also took part in robotics programmes and competed at national robotics competitions. After completing her undergraduate degree in 2010, she moved to Princeton University as a graduate student.[1] Here she worked on non-equilibrium phases of matter in Floquet crystals.
Research and career edit
As part of her doctoral research, Khemani was part of a team that identified a novel phase of matter, which is now known as a Floquet time-crystal. Such crystals demonstrate spontaneous breaking of time translation symmetry.[2][3] In conventional crystals, atoms are arranged in regular and ordered patterns, whereas in time crystals they are arranged in both space and time.[3][4] In 2016, Khemani was made a Harvard Junior Fellow in the Harvard Society of Fellows.[5][6]
Awards and honours edit
- 2020 Department of Physics at the University of Illinois McMillan Award[7]
- 2020 American Physical Society George E. Valley Jr. Prize[8]
- 2020 United States Department of Energy Early Career Award[9]
- 2020 Sloan Research Fellowship[10][11]
- 2022 New Horizons in Physics Prize[12]
Select publications edit
- Choi, Jae-yoon; Hild, Sebastian; Zeiher, Johannes; Schauß, Peter; Rubio-Abadal, Antonio; Yefsah, Tarik; Khemani, Vedika; Huse, David A.; Bloch, Immanuel; Gross, Christian (2016-06-24). "Exploring the many-body localization transition in two dimensions". Science. 352 (6293): 1547–1552. arXiv:1604.04178. Bibcode:2016Sci...352.1547C. doi:10.1126/science.aaf8834. ISSN 0036-8075. PMID 27339981. S2CID 35012132.
- Choi, Soonwon; Choi, Joonhee; Landig, Renate; Kucsko, Georg; Zhou, Hengyun; Isoya, Junichi; Jelezko, Fedor; Onoda, Shinobu; Sumiya, Hitoshi; Khemani, Vedika; von Keyserlingk, Curt (2017). "Observation of discrete time-crystalline order in a disordered dipolar many-body system". Nature. 543 (7644): 221–225. arXiv:1610.08057. Bibcode:2017Natur.543..221C. doi:10.1038/nature21426. ISSN 1476-4687. PMC 5349499. PMID 28277511.
- Khemani, Vedika; Lazarides, Achilleas; Moessner, Roderich; Sondhi, S. L. (2016-06-21). "Phase Structure of Driven Quantum Systems". Physical Review Letters. 116 (25): 250401. arXiv:1508.03344. Bibcode:2016PhRvL.116y0401K. doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.116.250401. PMID 27391704.
Personal life and education edit
In 2013 Khemani married David Coats, whom she met at Harvey Mudd College.[13]
References edit
- ^ a b Khemani, Vedika (2012-02-01). "Why a Liberal Arts Education Matters". India Ink. Retrieved 2020-08-20.
- ^ "Creating time crystals: Physicists create new form of matter that may hold the key to developing quantum machines". ScienceDaily. Retrieved 2020-08-20.
Led by Professors of Physics Mikhail Lukin and Eugene Demler, a team consisting of post-doctoral fellows Renate Landig and Georg Kucsko, Junior Fellow Vedika Khemani, and Physics Department graduate students Soonwon Choi, Joonhee Choi and Hengyun Zhou built a quantum system using a small piece of diamond embedded with millions of atomic-scale impurities known as nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centers. Other co-authors of the study are Junichi Isoya, Shinobu Onoda,and Hitoshi Sumiya from University of Tsukuba, Takasaki Advanced Research Institute and Sumitomo, Fedor Jelezko from University of Ulm, Curt von Keyserlingk from Princeton University and Norman Y. Yao from UC Berkeley.
- ^ a b "Researchers create 'time crystals' envisioned by Princeton scientists". phys.org. Retrieved 2020-08-20.
Princeton postdoctoral researcher Curt von Keyserlingk, who contributed additional theoretical work with Khemani and Sondhi, said, "We explained how the time crystal systems lock into the persistent oscillations that signify a spontaneous breaking of time translation symmetry." Additional work by researchers at Microsoft's Station Q and the University of California-Berkeley led to further understanding of time crystals. As a result of these theoretical studies, two groups of experimenters began attempting to build time crystals in the laboratory.
- ^ "Scientists confirm: Time crystals definitely exist". Christian Science Monitor. 2017-03-09. ISSN 0882-7729. Retrieved 2020-08-20.
- ^ "LMG two blaze Harvard trail". www.telegraphindia.com. Retrieved 2020-08-20.
- ^ "Senior & Junior Fellows (current academic year)". socfell.fas.harvard.edu. Retrieved 2020-08-20.
- ^ "McMillan Award | ILLINOIS PHYSICS". physics.illinois.edu. Retrieved 2020-08-20.
- ^ "2021 George E. Valley Jr. Prize Recipient". www.aps.org. Retrieved 2020-08-20.
- ^ "Five Indian Americans Receive US DoE Early Career Award". The Indian Panorama. 2020-07-18. Retrieved 2020-08-20.
- ^ Staff Writer. "Several Indian-Americans Among 2020 Sloan Research Fellows | News India Times". Retrieved 2020-08-20.
- ^ "2020 Fellows". sloan.org. Retrieved 2020-08-20.
- ^ "WINNERS OF THE 2022 BREAKTHROUGH PRIZES IN LIFE SCIENCES, FUNDAMENTAL PHYSICS AND MATHEMATICS ANNOUNCED". BreakthroughPrize.org. September 9, 2021. Retrieved September 10, 2021.
Beyond the main prizes, six New Horizons Prizes, each of $100,000, were distributed between 13 early-career scientists and mathematicians who have already made a substantial impact on their fields....[including a 2022 New Horizons in Physics Prize to Dominic Else, Vedika Khemani, Haruki Watanabe, and Norman Y. Yao for] pioneering theoretical work formulating novel phases of non-equilibrium quantum matter, including time crystals.
- ^ "David Coats ('08) and Vedika Khemani ('10) Marry". physics.hmc.edu. Retrieved 2020-08-20.