Such effective theories are designed to describe phenomena occurring on large length and time scales. The nature of the dynamical transition in supercooled liquids as they freeze into a glassy state is one of the major puzzles in condensed matter physics. Prof. Chakraborty has been investigating frustrated spin models, which exhibit a similar transition, in order to elucidate the phenomena occurring in supercooled liquids. A sampling of recent publications and short descriptions of her research topics can be found on the group's web site . Prof. Jane' Kondev is interested in various phases of strongly correlated condensed matter and the transitions between them.
Examples range from polymer physics and magnetism to electron localization.
For instance, in polymer physics Prof. Kondev is developing simple models to study structural properties of biopolymers. Localization of electrons in the quantum Hall liquid is another problem of current interest.