Professor Siddharth Parameswaran

Sid is a theoretical physicist, whose work focuses on on quantum mechanical systems of many particles that are strongly interacting, far from equilibrium, or both.

Systems of interacting particles can display a variety of emergent cooperative phenomena that cannot be understood from their microscopic details. Usually, the study of this type of “condensed matter” builds on two key principles, namely (i) that most situations can be understood by approximately treating the constituents (such as electrons, atoms, or molecules) as weakly interacting; and (ii) that the assumption of thermal equilibrium provides a powerful way to capture the properties of complex systems using simple statistical tools.

Sid is interested in what happens when quantum systems are so strongly interacting, or so dramatically disturbed from equilibrium, that these guiding principles break down. A new set of ideas is therefore required to fully understand the behavior of such systems, and to explore their properties. Besides their great fundamental interest, many of the new phenomena displayed in these extreme regimes could have many important applications — particularly if new theoretical insights allow them to be reproduced in more conventional situations. Insights into weakly-correlated, equilibrium systems fueled the technological revolution of the second half of the twentieth century; what new and unexpected benefits might we accrue from understanding their more complex cousins? The exciting possibilities range from low-power electronics to revolutionary new technologies such as quantum computers.