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Publications

arXiv

Most of Premi’s publications can be found on the arXiv where there is information about further publication in journals.

 

Selected Broader Pieces :

 

1. New Outlooks and Old Dreams in Quantum Antiferromagnets, P. Chandra and P. Coleman in in Strongly Interacting Fermions and High Temperature Superconductivity: Les Houches Lecture Notes (Session LVI, eds. B. Doucot and J. Zinn-Justin (North-Holland, Amsterdam 1995)

2. Seeking a Simple Complex System , G. Aeppli and P. Chandra, Science 275, 177 (1997)

3. Rigidity and Memory in a Simple Glass, P Chandra and L.B. Ioffe in Rigidity Theory and Applications, eds. M. Thorpe and P. Duxbury (Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers, New York, 1999).

4. Sleuthing Hidden Order, V. Tripathi, P. Chandra and P. Coleman, Nat. Physics 3 78 (2007)

5. The Gathering Storm of Data, P. Chandra and P. Coleman, Nature Physics 5, 625 (2009)

6. Multifunctionality goes Quantum Critical, P. Chandra, Nat. Mat. 18, 197-8 (2019).
7.  Soviet Influences on Kenneth Wilson’s Renormalization Group Work, P. Chandra, Nat. Phys. 19, 1525 (2023)..
8. Polar Quantum Criticality:  Challenges and Opportunities,  P. Chandra in Correlations and Phase Transitions, eds. E. Pavarini and E. Koch, Fortschungszentrum Julich GmbH, Institute for Advanced Simulation, Julich (2024).
9. Philip Warren Anderson, P. Chandra, P. Coleman and C.C. Yu, Invited Biographical Memoir for the Royal Society (London) (to appear in 2026).

 

Recent Work

Faraday waves, typically observed in driven fluids, result from the confluence of nonlinearity and parametric amplification. We show that optical pulses can generate analogous phenomena that persist such longer than the pump time-scales in ordered quantum solids. We present a theory of ultrafast light-matter interactions within a symmetry-broken state; dynamical nonlinear coupling between the Higgs (amplitude) and the Goldstone (phase) modes drives an emergent phason texture that oscillates in space and in time: Faraday-Goldstone waves.

Using an integrated computational-analytic approach, we have explored the possibility of an emergent phase transition in a 1 + 1 frustrated quantum system. Our mean-field estimate for the parameters of the quantum helical transition is in good agreement with the density matrix renormalization (DMRG) results. We also evaluate the entanglement spectrum and nonlocal string order parameters to characterize the topological character of the emergent helical phase.

3.  Spatiotemporal Order and Parametric Instabilities from First-Principles

Shaping crystal structure with light is an enduring goal of physics and materials engineering. Here we present calculations in candidate materials selected by symmetry that allow light-induced spatiotemporal parametric instabilities. We demonstrate a theoretical framework that includes a complete symmetry analysis of phonon modes that contribute to parametric instabilities across all non-centrosymmetric point groups, a detailed survey of the materials landscape and finally the computation of nonlinear couplings from first principles. We then showcase detailed results for chiral crystals, ferroelectrics, and layered van der Waals materials. Our results pave the way towards realizing designer time-crystalline order in quantum materials, detectable with time-resolved diffractive probes.

4. Tunable Spatiotemporal Orders in Driven Insulators

We present a mechanism for light-induced ordering that oscillates in space and in time with specific predictions for experiment.  This is a  pathway to optically driven phase transitions in insulators that are in symmetry-broken states where the interplay of nonlinearity, parametric resonance and spatial dispersion results in spatiotemporal orderings.

5. Observation of a Critical Charge Mode in a Strange Metal

Strange metals lie outside the conventional description of conducting behavior, and their charge dynamics are not accessible with conventional probes. Using a state-of-the-art technique, synchrotron-radiation-based Mossbauer spectroscopy, we have studied the longitudinal charge fluctuations of as particular strange metal phase as a function of temperature and pressure. Our results represent a direct observation of critical charge fluctuations as a new signature of strange metals.