Nikhil Karthik

I am an Associate Editor of Physical Review Letters, the physics letter journal of the American Physical Society. I also hold a courtesy research faculty appointment in the Department of Physics at Florida International University, Miami.

As a theoretical physicist, I study the strong-force that binds the fundamental particles called quarks and gluons to form the ubiquitous protons and neutrons that build the atomic nuclei. I use a technique called Lattice QCD to numerically simulate the equations of Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD) that govern the strong-force. Through such numerical experiments performed on high-performance computing facilities, I try to learn more about aspects of QCD that are not amenable to a pencil-and-paper calculation.

I obtained my Ph.D. from the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research. I held postdoctoral research positions at Florida International University, Brookhaven National Laboratory, and Jefferson Lab.

You can contact me at nkarthik.work AT gmail.com

Research interests:

Aspects of QCD-like theories near the conformal-window. I study certain types of theories called conformal field theories using Monte Carlo simulations. These are diametrically opposite theories to QCD in the sense that they do not have any inherent mass-gap or length-scales. By studying how to deform these types of theories to produce a mass-gap, I try to understand how a proton with non-zero mass emerges from QCD, which then goes on to form the bulk of the visible universe. For this, my favorite systems live on a two-dimensional plane.
Quark and gluon structure inside hadrons through first-principle lattice QCD calculations. The question here is how the quarks and gluons are distributed within the hadrons, which are the bound-states of QCD with proton being an example. The catch however, is not to get them from experiments, but instead, to obtain them from the fundamental QCD theory directly, and thereby, try to understand their non-perturbative origin.
Thermal properties of a bulk of QCD matter. For my Ph.D., I studied how a plasma of quarks and gluons that form at temperatures of about a million-trillion Celcius react by screening when a source of proton or pion is introduced into it.

50 Years of QCD : a Physical Review Collection

2023 marks the 50th Anniversary since the phenomenon of asymptotic freedom was discovered in QCD. What this meant was that the QCD theory describes nearly free-moving quarks with protons and neutrons as was seen in scattering experiments.

It is remarkable that a single theory explains both weakly-interacting quark-gluons within hadrons, as well as leads to the emergence of the entire spectrum of hadrons.

To celebrate the 50th Anniversary of QCD, the editors of Physical Review have put together a Collection of papers relating to important advancements in understanding the theory and its consequences.

50 Years of QCDThis collection marks the 50th anniversary of the discovery of asymptotic freedom in quantum chromodynamics.