Arun Kannawadi Jayaraman

Indian Institute of Technology, Madras

Ph.D applicant, Dept.of Physics,

Statement of Purpose
The ability to describe nature and its potential to provide elegant solutions to the fundamental questions of the universe is what has rendered Physics appealing to me. Physics and Mathematics have been my favorite from the time these subjects were introduced in school. My ability to grasp the concepts intuitively as well as mathematically enabled me secure an All-India Rank of 206 in IIT-JEE out of 250,000 odd students who took the examination. I chose to study Electrical Engineering after my schooling, since it involves applications of Physics and comes with a bag full of mathematical techniques, with the idea of pursuing Physics at graduate level. As a freshman, in the Electrodynamics course, I was amazed at how Electricity and Magnetism were unified together and how Maxwells equations turned out to be invariant under Lorentz transformations naturally. I was also left puzzled by the abstruse and profound concepts of Quantum Mechanics, especially of its probabilistic nature, taught in Chemistry during the first semester at IIT. The popular science books I read through my sophomore year Brief History of Time and The Universe in a Nutshell by Stephen Hawking gave the subject an additional lure. I was astonished to see how Physics could be explained with hardly any equations. Towards the end of my sophomore year, I came across a video lecture of Dr.V.Balakrishnan, IIT Madras on Classical Mechanics that was recorded for NPTEL1. I was enthralled and determined to view all of them. During the summer of 2009, after coming back from industrial internship through the day, I used to watch those lectures and that of Prof. Walter Lewin, MIT attentively. I took Physics minor in my junior year and chose most of my electives from the Physics department. I attended (audited) several courses in Physics out of interest, which were not a part of my official course-work. Apart from these courses, I undertook a winter project in December 2009 under the guidance of Dr.Suresh Govindarajan, Department of Physics, IIT Madras. I had to work out the mathematics behind the derivation of Kastelyns results on the statistics of dimers in a lattice2. This called for a clear understanding of Pfaffians and eigenvalues of tridiagonal matrices. It was mathematically challenging and a rich learning experience. The project also helped improve my analytical skills. I am also a member of the Boltzmann3, an informal group of students enthusiastic about Theoretical Physics. We meet on weekends and have discussions on topics that are at an advanced level for undergraduates and which are not typically taught in any of the courses. In the past, we have had a variety of themes like Random walks, General Relativity, Classical & Quantum Information etc.
1 NPTEL National Programme on Technology Enhanced Learning : http://www.nptel.iitm.ac.in 2 Statistics of dimers on a lattice the number of arrangements on a quadratic lattice

hysica, Vol 27, Issue 12, p.1209-1225 ( 1961 ) P

3 Boltzmann - http://boltzmann.wikidot.com/

The course in Quantum Mechanics, as a part of my minor, made more sense to me than the Quantum Chemistry course I had in my freshman year. It made me appreciate the abstract nature of Physics. The counter-intuitive nature of Quantum Mechanics, starting from the concepts of Measurement and the uncertainty principle to EPR Paradox, has left me bewildered and has developed in me a curiosity to understand its foundations. I obtained a research internship after my junior year at the Department of Physics, University of Toronto, Canada. This project was offered by MITACS through their Globalink program, by which they chose to invite about 100 students from all over India to Canada. I worked with Dr.Aephraim Steinberg and his group, on experimental Quantum Optics. One of the goals they had was to measure experimentally the (average) time it takes for a particle to tunnel through a sharply focused Laser (optical) barrier. I ran simulations to obtain the smallest possible spotsize taking into account the finiteness of the lens and other practical constraints and came up with specifications for the apparatus. I then worked on the optical setup to realize this in practice and had to characterize the beam obtained. The experiment to observe the tunneling of BEC ( Bose Einstein Condensate ) across the beam was scheduled to be carried out later, after my internship period. In a nutshell, this opportunity helped me perceive the nature of experiments, the challenges involved and the techniques used to handle those issues. My interest in Quantum Mechanics coupled with my background in engineering led me to take up Quantum Information & Computation which deals with practical applications of these principles in the fields of Communication and Cryptography. For my self-study elective, I worked on the theory behind the experiments of DPS-QKD, a method suggested for public-key distribution. What fascinates me is the fact that it is absolutely secure unlike Classical cryptography which banks on the fact that the time taken to decrypt the code is enormous. The scheme works on the assumption of single photon states and I am presently analyzing the feasibility and security of the scheme with weak-coherent states. For my final year B.Tech project, I am working on Quantum Spin Glasses under the guidance of Dr.Arul Lakshiminarayan, Dept. of Physics, IIT Madras. I study the entanglement in this multibody system using definite-particles-states basis by first calculating the Eigen Energy values of the system and corresponding eigen states and computing a quantity called Concurrence, which is a measure of entanglement between the spins. I am in the process of writing a C code to compute these quantities. Quantum Information is an inter-disciplinary field and involves familiarity and knowledge from other areas of Physics as well. I believe that with the right mix of Electrical engineering and Physics fundamentals and exposure to some areas of Quantum Cryptography and Quantum Entanglement,, I will be able to make a good contribution to this exciting area. I am also eager to get acquainted and equip myself with techniques, from various relevant disciplines. Although I enjoy both theoretical and experimental work in this field, I find the former to suit me better. I plan to continue the research in related fields, especially in Quantum Information, as a researcher after graduation. Owing to my inclination towards teaching, I prefer to be associated as a faculty member in an academic institution in future.