During their PhD students will carry out original research work asking new questions and discovering new aspects not known earlier to anyone. In their pursuit of new knowledge students will be guided by a faculty member. A PhD student may do his/her research in one of the following areas where our own faculty members are actively engaged
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High energy physics
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Condensed matter
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Optics, Atomic and Molecular physics
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Gravitation, Astrophysics and Cosmology
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Nuclear Physics
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Mathematical Physics
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Foundations of Quantum Mechanics
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Nonlinear Dynamics
Students have to complete certain course-work during the 1st year of their PhD. The course work is comprises of foundational courses in Physics & courses belonging to the student’s research area. Foundational courses are chosen from Quantum mechanics, Statistical mechanics, Electromagnetic theory, Solid state physics, Classical mechanics. Courses belonging to the research area could be introductory or advanced depending on the students own background. Course work is rigorous. Heavy emphasis is given to problem solving in these courses. All students have to complete a course in Research Methodology sometime during their PhD.
After completing course work, students have to clear a qualifying examination before they can register for a PhD thesis. The qualifying examination is based mainly on the course work done by the student during the 1st year. More details can be found here. Students get a maximum of two chances to clear the qualifying examination.
On completing the qualifying examination successfully, he/she can register for a PhD thesis & be fully occupied pursuing research work. As a first step towards research, students have to carry in-depth study of current status of research in their field & think of relevant research questions that they will work upon during their PhD. A result of this work & thought has to be presented & defended in the form of a Research proposal to their Doctoral Advisory Committee (DAC).
A student then continues to work on his research questions. At the end of it all the student communicates his/her research findings to the entire research community through research papers in Jorunals & finally writes up a PhD thesis. The PhD thesis is then evaulated by experts & the student has to defend their thesis. Finally, after successfully defending the thesis the student is awarded a PhD degree.