I am an assistant professor at the department of physics and astronomy at the Iowa State University. Broadly speaking I am interested in quantum field theoretic aspects of strong interactions with a focus on applications to the QCD phase diagram. I spend a significant part of my time thinking about the low temperature dense phases of matter that are likely to be realized in the cores of neutron stars. In this regard, my current research interest has primarily two complementing directions. One of them involves understanding questions of principle with respect to quantum phase transitions and its interplay with strong dynamics. The other utilizes various effective field theory techniques ranging from chiral expansion, Fermi liquid theory and the virial expansion to understand phenomenological consequences of strong dynamics in dense environments made up of nucleons and or quarks.

Quark-Hadron phase transition in dense QCD : Some of the early analysis of emergent phenomena in dense QCD closely followed the developments in condensed matter physics including superfluidity and superconductivity. However, more contemporary techniques involving topological considerations beyond the Ginzburg-Landau paradigm have not been put to use in its study. A direction of my research is focused on revisiting the QCD phase diagram in search of possible new phase transitions beyond the Ginzburg-Landau paradigm involving spontaneous breaking of global symmetries by local order parameters. In fact in a recent paper I and my collaborators uncovered evidence of a new phase transition between quark matter and nuclear matter detectable only using non-local operators like the color Aharonov-Bohm phase around superfluid vortices. This work has opened up several directions of inquiry, casting new light on the question of Higgs-confinement complementarity. Our findings also point towards newer criterion of phase transitions beyond Ganzburg-Landau paradigm as well as topological order in gapped systems.

Higgs-confinement complementarity : Higgs and confining regions of a gauge theory are generally believed to be smoothly connected without a phase transition. Although such continuity was demonstrated to exist only for a certain class of gauge theories, the theorem has been applied more generally without much care. My work with collaborators in the context of quark-hadron transition suggests that Higgs and confining regimes of a gauge theory may well be separated by a phase transition under certain circumstances.

Dense matter equation of state and nuclear astrophysics : I have been working in phenomenological aspects of the strong interactions that are of relevance to neutron star observations. This includes my past work on effective field theories of triplet paired neutron matter, neutrino emission from hot and dilute neutron gas etc. My current focus is on exploring the equation of state of cold dense matter which will help us understand gravitational wave signals from neutron star mergers as well as the speed of sound in dense matter.

Chiral transport : In a medium with excess chirality of charged massless fermions, there can be novel transport phenomena that go under the name of chiral transport. In fact the chiral magnetic effect and the corresponding instability has been conjectured to give rise to strong magnetic fields in neutron stars. The electrons in a neutron star are expected to experience a nonzero chiral chemical potential owing to their weak interactions with background neutrons and protons. One of the proposals for generation of strong magnetic fields that involved converting this chiral chemical potential into magnetic field through the anomaly relied on an incorrect estimation of the chiral magnetic current. I and my collaborators found the correct expression for the current and showed that this mechanism in its simplest form is not able to give rise to strong magnetic fields. I have also worked on shock-waves in chiral medium and chiral gravitational effects.

My publications : http://inspirehep.net/search?ln=en&ln=en&p=Srimoyee+Sen&of=hb&action_search=Search&sf=&so=d&rm=&rg=25&sc=0