Biography:Vedika Khemani

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Vedika Khemani
Born1988 (1988)
India
Alma mater
Scientific career
ThesisQuantum order, entanglement and localization in many body systems. (2016)
Doctoral advisorShivaji Sondhi

Vedika Khemani (born 1988) is a theoretical physicist and Associate Professor at Stanford University.[1] Her research lies at the intersection of many-body quantum condensed matter physics and quantum information theory.

Early life and education

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 courses, Khemani completed courses in mathematics, computer science, economics, linguistics and creative writing.[2] She also took part in robotics programs and competed at national robotics competitions.

After completing her undergraduate degree in 2010, she went on to graduate studies at Princeton University.[2] There, she worked with doctoral advisor Shivaji Sondhi.[3] Following her PhD studies, Khemani was a Junior Fellow in the Harvard Society of Fellows.[4][5]

Research and career

Khemani's research focuses on non-equilibrium many-body quantum dynamics. As part of her doctoral research, Khemani identified a novel non-equilibrium phase of matter known as a Floquet time-crystal.[6] Such crystals demonstrate spontaneous breaking of time translation symmetry.[7][8][9] In conventional crystals, atoms are arranged in regular and ordered patterns, whereas in time crystals they are arranged in both space and time.[8][9]

Awards and honours

  • 2024 Infosys Prize in Physical Sciences[10]
  • 2022 Breakthrough New Horizons in Physics Prize[11]

Select publications

Personal life and education

In 2013 Khemani married David Coats, whom she met at Harvey Mudd College.[17]

References

  1. "Vedika Khemani | Leinweber Institute for Theoretical Physics" (in en). https://sitp.stanford.edu/people/vedika-khemani. 
  2. 2.0 2.1 Khemani, Vedika (2012-02-01). "Why a Liberal Arts Education Matters" (in en-US). https://india.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/01/choice-on-india-ink-liberal/. 
  3. "Research Supervision | Shivaji Sondhi" (in en). https://sondhi.scholar.princeton.edu/research-supervision. 
  4. "LMG two blaze Harvard trail". https://www.telegraphindia.com/west-bengal/lmg-two-blaze-harvard-trail/cid/1502591. 
  5. "Senior & Junior Fellows (current academic year)" (in en). https://socfell.fas.harvard.edu/news-events. 
  6. Khemani, Vedika; Lazarides, Achilleas; Moessner, Roderich; Sondhi, S. L. (2016-06-21). "Phase Structure of Driven Quantum Systems" (in en). Physical Review Letters 116 (25). doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.116.250401. ISSN 0031-9007. https://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevLett.116.250401. 
  7. "Creating time crystals: Physicists create new form of matter that may hold the key to developing quantum machines" (in en). https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/04/170417155014.htm. "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." 
  8. 8.0 8.1 "Researchers create 'time crystals' envisioned by Princeton scientists" (in en). https://phys.org/news/2017-03-crystals-envisioned-princeton-scientists.html. "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." 
  9. 9.0 9.1 "Eternal Change for No Energy: A Time Crystal Finally Made Real". Quanta Magazine. 2021-07-30. https://www.quantamagazine.org/first-time-crystal-built-using-googles-quantum-computer-20210730/. 
  10. "Infosys Prize - Laureates 2024 - Vedika Khemani". https://www.infosysprize.org/laureates/2024/vedika-khemani.html. 
  11. "WINNERS OF THE 2022 BREAKTHROUGH PRIZES IN LIFE SCIENCES, FUNDAMENTAL PHYSICS AND MATHEMATICS ANNOUNCED". BreakthroughPrize.org. September 9, 2021. https://breakthroughprize.org/News/65. "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." 
  12. "McMillan Award | ILLINOIS PHYSICS". https://physics.illinois.edu/people/honors-and-awards/mcmillan-award. 
  13. "2021 George E. Valley Jr. Prize Recipient" (in en). https://www.aps.org/programs/honors/prizes/prizerecipient.cfm?last_nm=Khemani&first_nm=Vedika&year=2021. 
  14. "Five Indian Americans Receive US DoE Early Career Award" (in en-US). 2020-07-18. https://www.theindianpanorama.news/frontpage-news/five-indian-americans-receive-us-doe-early-career-award/. 
  15. Staff Writer. "Several Indian-Americans Among 2020 Sloan Research Fellows | News India Times" (in en-US). https://www.newsindiatimes.com/several-indian-americans-among-2020-sloan-research-fellows/. 
  16. "2020 Fellows". https://sloan.org/fellowships/2020-Fellows. 
  17. "David Coats ('08) and Vedika Khemani ('10) Marry". https://physics.hmc.edu/news/22/.