Dr. A. Ravi. P. Rau, Professor of Physics

Research Interests

Our primary research interests in atomic physics are in understanding highly correlated motions. These may be the motions of an electron in an atom under the simultaneous strong influence of an external field, in addition to the internal electric field in the atom. In other phenomena, the correlated motion may be that of two or more electrons moving under their mutual forces and those due to the positively charged ionic core. Both classes of phenomena involve high stages of excitation of the atom and regimes in which conventional perturbation techniques fail. Yet a rich variety of results continue to emerge from laboratory experiments. We are involved in exploring new analytical and phenomenological methods to understand these results and thereby understand novel aspects of atomic dynamics.

We also study problems involving strong time-dependent electromagnetic fields. Propagators and wave functions are obtained, analytically and numerically, that are of interest for the effect of intense laser fields on atoms or for arbitrary spins in magnetic fields. Currently, this technique for solving time-dependent operator equations is being applied to geometric phases and other problems in quantum computation and quantum information, also in the presence of decoherence.

Also of nterest to us is a general technique of mathematical physics, namely the formulation of variational principles for diverse physical problems.

Our recent interest is in the area of quantum information: studies of entanglement and other correlations such as quantum discord, their evolution under dissipative and decoherent processes and how they may be controlled, geometrical and symmetry studies of operators and state of N qubits and connections between the Lie and Clifford albegras involved with topics in projective geometrty and design theory.

223 Nicholson Hall
Louisiana State University
Baton Rouge,LA-70803-4001
Phone-225-578-6841
E-mail: arau@phys.lsu.edu