A P Balachandran has a long and impressive record of research in particle physics and quantum field theory, bringing concepts of geometry, topology and operator algebras to the analysis of physical problems, particularly in particle physics and condensed matter physics. He has also had an influential role within the physics community, not only in terms of a large number of students, research associates and collaborators, but also serving on the editorial boards of important publications, including the International Journal of Modern Physics A. This book consists of articles by students and associates of Balachandran. Most of the articles are scientific in nature, with topics ranging from noncommutative geometry, particle physics phenomenology, to condensed matter physics. Various chapters focus on new perspectives and directions resulting from Balachandran's contributions to physics, as well as some reminiscences of collaborating and working with Balachandran.
T R Govindarajan is on the faculty (currently emeritus) of the Institute of Mathematical Sciences, Chennai, India. His research spans a variety of topics in high energy physics, including solitons, entanglement, quantum black holes, physical applications of fuzzy geometry, etc.
Giuseppe Marmo is a Professor of Physics (currently emeritus) at the Federico II University of Naples, Italy. He is the author of well over 300 research papers and two books, with many significant contributions to mathematical physics, including work on the connections between classical and quantum physics , solitons, monopoles, topology in physics, fuzzy spaces, groupoids, etc.
V Parameswaran Nair is a Distinguished Professor of Physics at the City College of the City University of New York. He has made important contributions to the topics of skyrmions, anomalies, twistors as applied to scattering amplitudes, nonperturbative aspects of gauge theories, Chern-Simons theories, noncommutative spaces, quantum Hall systems, etc. He is also the author of two books, on Quantum Field Theory and on Particle Physics.
Denjoe O'Connor is a Professor of Theoretical Physics at the Dublin Institute for Advanced Study, Dublin, Ireland. Among other topics, his research focuses on fuzzy spaces and emergent geometry, including large scale numerical work on phase transitions.
S G Rajeev is a Professor of Physics and Professor of Mathematics at the University of Rochester, Rochester, USA. Focusing on the more mathematical aspects of physics, his contributions cover skyrmions, anomalies, large N gauge theories, and notably a formulation of string theory as the Kahler geometry of loop space. He is also the author of two books, on Fluid Mechanics and on Advanced Mechanics.
Sachindeo Vaidya is a Professor of Physics at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India. His research covers a wide variety of topics including monopoles, solitons, fuzzy geometry, black holes and matrix models.
