Bikas Chakrabarti

Bikas K. Chakrabarti
Born	(1952-12-14) 14 December 1952 Calcutta, India
Alma mater	Calcutta University
Known for	Quantum annealing Econophysics Kinetic exchange models of markets
Awards	Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Award
Scientific career
Fields	Physics, Economics
Institutions	Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics, Kolkata Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata S. N. Bose National Centre for Basic Sciences, Kolkata

Bikas Kanta Chakrabarti (born 14 December 1952 in Kolkata (erstwhile Calcutta) is an Indian physicist. At present he is INSA Scientist (Physics) at the Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics & Visiting Professor (Economics) at the Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata, India.

Biography

Chakrabarti received his Ph.D. degree from Calcutta University in 1979. Following post-doctoral work at the University of Oxford and the University of Cologne, he joined the faculty of Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics (SINP) in 1983. He is S. S. Bhatnagar Prize awardee (1997) and former J. C. Bose National Fellow (2011-2020). He is a former director of SINP. At present he is INSA Scientist at SINP (2021-) and also Honorary Visiting Professor of economics (2007-) at the Indian Statistical Institute. Emeritus Professor of SINP and of S.N. Bose National Centre for Basic Sciences. Much of Chakrabarti's research has centered around statistical condensed matter physics (including Quantum annealing; see also D-Wave Systems & Timeline of quantum computing) and applications to social sciences (see e.g., Econophysics).

Honors, Awards & Recognitions

Awards, Fellowships, etc

• Young Scientist Award of Indian National Science Academy, New Delhi (1984)
• Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Award of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, India (1997)
• Fellow, Indian Academy of Sciences, Bangalore (1997-)
• Fellow, Indian National Science Academy, New Delhi (2003-)
• Honorary Visiting Professor of Economics, Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata (2007- )
• Outstanding Referee Award of the American Physical Society (2010)
• J. C. Bose National Fellow, Department of Science and Technology (India) (2011-2020)

Topic: Quantum annealing

• "Idea of Quantum annealing” due to "tunnelling through infinitely high classical barriers separating infinitely many metastable states was indeed put forward even earlier, in Ray, Charabarti & Chakrabarti, Phys. Rev. B (1989)"(4th para, Introduction), Journal of Physics A Topical Review by Erio Tosatti et al. from ICTP, Trieste (2008)

• In "Quantum Glasses", "where barriers to relaxation are tall and narrow, quantum mechanics can enhance the ability to traverse the free energy surface (Ray, Charabarti & Chakrabarti, Phys. Rev. B (1989))” (3rd sentence), Physical Review Letters by Gabriel Aeppli (ETH Zurich), Thomas Felix Rosenbaum (Caltech) et al. (2008)

• "Quantum annealing [Finnila et al. Chem. Phys. Letts. (1994); Kadowaki & Nishimori, Phys. Rev. E (1998); Farhi et al., arXiv (2002); Brooke et al., Science (1999); Santoro et al., Science (2002)] is a technique inspired by classical simulated annealing [Ray, Chakrabarti & Chakrabarti, Phys. Rev. B (1989)] that aims to take advantage of quantum tunnelling." [1st sentence], Nature Communications by Sergio Boixo, Hartmut Neven (Google California) et al. (2016)

• "Quantum annealing aims at finding low-energy configurations ... by a controlled quantum adiabatic evolution ... to escape local minima through multiple tunneling events (Ray, Charabarti & Chakrabarti, Phys. Rev. B (1989); ...; Das & Chakrabarti, Rev. Mod. Phys. (2008))" (1st sentence) ... [It can] lead to extremely powerful alternative computational devices (3rd sentence), PNAS by Riccardo Zecchina et al., ICTP Trieste (2018)

• “Earliest work in laying foundation of Quantum annealing was done in 1989 (Ray, Chakrabarti & Chakrabarti, Phys. Rev. B) ... Das & Chakrabarti (Rev. Mod. Phys., 2008) gives clear picture of fundamental physical properties and mechanism” (Introduction), Journal of Physics B by Helmut Ritsch et al. from Inst. Theor. Phys., University of Innsbruck (2022)

• “Adiabatic quantum computation (Farhi et al., Science, 2001; Das & Chakrabarti, Rev. Mod. Phys., 2008)” (Abstract) ...“has attracted intense interest (Das & Chakrabarti, Rev. Mod. Phys., 2008; Farhi et al., Science, 2001) owing to its potential speedup over classical algorithms” (Introduction), PNAS by Frank Wilczek et al. from MIT & elsewhere (2023)

Topic: Econophysics

• “Influential” & “Elegant” papers from “Kolkata School” (pp. 1705, 1711) on “Statistical mechanics of money, wealth & income”, Reviews of Modern Physics by Victor Yakovenko, Physics, University of Maryland & J. Barkley Rosser Jr., Economics, James Madison University (2009)

• “Father of Econophysics" (p. 15), Thesis by Christophe Schinckus, Dept. History and Philosophy of Science, University of Cambridge (2018)

• "Historic conference in Kolkata (India, 1995)": One of the six major events in the last hundred and twenty years of physics applications "in economics and finance ... [since] appearance of the doctoral dissertation by Louis Bachelier in 1900" (Fig. 2 caption), Entropy (journal) Econophysics spl. issue editorial by Ryszard Kutner, Christophe Schinckus & H. Eugene Stanley (2022)

• "Foundational paper (Chakraborti & Chakrabarti, Euro. Phys. J. B, 2000)” (Abstract & throughout), European Physical Journal B Topical Review by Max Greenberg from Dept. Economics, University of Massachusetts Amherst & H. Oliver Gao of Dept. Systems Engineering, Cornell University (2024)

• "During the 20th century, several mathematicians and economists have applied kinetic theory to economics: From Josef Steindl (1965) ..., to Benoit Mandelbrot (1960, 1963) ..., to Emmanuel Farjoun & Moshé Machover (1983) ..., to Chakrabarti et al. (2006) of the Calcutta Group, who applied kinetic model to income & wealth distribution.", writes Gianfranco Tusset, Economics, University of Padua in his paper (in sec. 2), in European Journal of History of Economic Thought (2024)

• “Econophysics: An Introduction (Sinha, Chatterjee, Chakraborti & Chakrabarti, Wiley, 2010)” has been the only suggested Textbook for the Econophysics course, offered (Teacher: Diego Garlaschelli) for last one & half a decade by the Leiden University physics dept. (where the inaugural-year [1969] economics Nobel Laureate Jan Tinbergen did undergrad and Ph. D. in statistical physics of economy under Paul Ehrenfest) (course began 2012-2013 & is continued: 2024-2025)

Books

• Quantum Ising Phases and Transitions in Transverse Ising Models, Bikas K. Chakrabarti, Amit Dutta and Parongama Sen, Springer-Verlag, Heidelberg (1996) [2nd Ed., with Sei Suzuki & Jun-ichi Inoue (2013)]
• Statistical Physics of Fracture and Breakdown in Disordered Solids, Bikas K. Chakrabarti and L. Gilles Benguigui, Oxford University Press, Oxford (1997)
• Econophysics: An Introduction, Sitabhra Sinha, Arnab Chatterjee, Anirban Chakraborti and Bikas K. Chakrabarti, Wiley-VCH, Berlin (2011)
• Econophysics of Income & Wealth Distributions, Bikas K. Chakrabarti, Anirban Chakraborti, Satya R. Chakravarty and Arnab Chatterjee, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge (2013)
• Sociophysics: An Introduction, Parongama Sen and Bikas K. Chakrabarti, Oxford University Press, Oxford (2014)
• Quantum Phase Transitions in Transverse Field Spin Models: From Statistical Physics to Quantum Information, Amit Dutta, Gabriel Aeppli, Bikas K. Chakrabarti, Uma Divakaran, Thomas Felix Rosenbaum & Diptiman Sen, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge (2015)
• Statistical Physics of Fracture, Breakdown & Earthquakes, Soumyajyoti Biswas, Purusattam Ray & Bikas K. Chakrabarti, Wiley-VCH, Berlin (2015)
• Quantum Spin Glasses, Annealing and Computation, Shu Tanaka, Ryo Tamura & Bikas K. Chakrabarti, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge (2017)

Reviews

• B. K. Chakrabarti and M. Acharyya, Dynamic Transitions and Hysteresis, Rev. Mod. Phys. 71, 847 (1999)
• A. Das and B. K. Chakrabarti, Quantum Annealing and Analog Quantum Computations, Rev. Mod. Phys. 80, 1061 (2008)
• S. Pradhan, A. Hansen, and B. K. Chakrabarti, Failure Processes in Elastic Fiber Bundles, Rev. Mod. Phys. 82, 499 (2010).
• H. Kawamura, T. Hatano, N. Kato, S. Biswas, and B. K. Chakrabarti, Statistical Physics of Fracture, Friction, and Earthquakes, Rev. Mod. Phys. 84, 839 (2012).
• A. Chakraborti, D. Challet, A. Chatterjee, M. Marsili, Y.-C. Zhang, and B. K. Chakrabarti, Statistical Mechanics of Competitive Resource Allocation using Agent-Based Models, Phys. Rep. 552, 1 (2015).
• B. K. Chakrabarti and A. Sinha, Development of Econophysics: A Biased Account and Perspective from Kolkata, Entropy, 23, 254 (2021).
• A. Rajak, S. Suzuki, A. Dutta and B. K. Chakrabarti, Quantum Annealing: An Overview, Phil. Trans. Royal Soc. A, 381, 20210417 (2023).

External links

• Google Sites Homepage
• Profile in Vidwan Database
• Outstanding Referees of the American Physical Society

• "Idea of Quantum Annealing due to tunneling"
• "Fast relaxation in Quantum Glasses”
• "Multiqubit tunnelling in quantum annealers" (Open Access)
• "Quantum annealing through multiple tunneling events" (Open Access)
• "Earliest work in laying foundation of Quantum Annealing" (Open Access)
• "Potential speed up in Adiabatic Quantum Computing” (Open Access)

• "Influential" & "Elegant" papers from "Kolkata School"

• "Father of Econophysics" (Open Access)
• "Historic conference in Kolkata (India, 1995)", (Open Access)
• "Foundational paper: 25 years of asset exchange modeling" (view-only Open Access)
• "History of Kinetic Theory in Economics"
• "Leiden Univ. Econophysics Prospectus" (2012-2013)-"Leiden Univ. Econophysics Prospectus" (2024-2025)

• "Unquenched: A memoir honoring Amit Dutta" (Open Access)