Rohit Kishan Ray

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I am a theoretical physicist. My main interest lies in quantum theory. I work on quantum information, quantum foundation, quantum thermodynamics. I am also interested in quantum communication. I also dabble in flat-band phyisics. I am currently working at PCS-IBS. This site brings together my academic work, the literary works that influence me, my hobbies of photography and pieces of my music (if I am brave enough to share), and my codes (will update someday).

A Brief Research Outlook

Steepest Entropy Ascent

A schematic for the geometry of SEA
Figure 1: This illustration captures the geometric idea behind the Steepest Entropy Ascent (SEA) framework. In most physical systems, the direction in which entropy tends to increase --- the entropy gradient --- is not automatically aligned with the allowed directions of motion, which are constrained by conserved quantities like energy and probability. These constraints define a surface (or manifold) in the system’s state space, often called the constraint hypersurface. more...

The idea behind Steepest Entropy Ascent (SEA) is to bring the second law of thermodynamics — the principle that entropy always increases — directly into the heart of quantum theory. Instead of just describing how systems evolve, SEA suggests that quantum systems naturally follow a path that produces entropy as steeply as possible, while still obeying the usual conservation laws (like energy and particle number). This gives us a more intuitive way to think about how quantum systems lose coherence and evolve toward equilibrium. The theory has a nice geometric feel to it and helps explain irreversible processes in a way that standard quantum mechanics can’t easily do (see Figure 1 for a visual overview). The SEA approach was developed mainly by Prof. Gian Paolo Beretta, and you can find a rich archive of his work here. My own research focuses on extending SEA into new areas of quantum thermodynamics, and if you're interested, you can check out some of it on the Research page.