vishwas

My research interests focus on the topics of evolution of out-of-equilibrium systems and metastable states and its eventual fate. A metastable phase corresponds to a local minimum in free energy in comparison with the global minimum associated with the stable phase. Under thermal fluctuations, these systems can transition towards a stable phase (eg., nucleation of ice) or fall out of equilibrium (eg., vitrification of glass). Materials like emulsions, foams, cement etc., fall under another class of materials wherein the thermal fluctuations are not sufficient enough to overcome the free energy barriers. In such cases external perturbations like shear and vibration can facilitate the system to evolve and in turn affect the macroscopic properties, which can be either catastrophic (eg., failure or breaking of material) or functional in nature (eg., flow of ketchup or mixing of cement). 

Under the wide scope of topics described above, I am currently working on specific problems related to i) Rheology of dense disordered systems, ii) Hierarchical structures in composite material, iii) Phase behavior of metastable liquids, iv) Relaxation dynamics and crystal nucleation of supercooled liquids, v) Understanding the role of thermal and mechanical noise in driven systems. To investigate these topics I use computational tools including molecular dynamics, Monte Carlo simulations as well as mesoscale and semi-analytical models.