Condensed Matter Theory:
Soft and Biological Matter
Group leader
dr. Debasish Chaudhuri
Associate Professor G,
Institute of Physics, Bhubaneswar
Office: room no.- 209
Contact:
Email: debc AT iopb. res. in
Phone: + 91-674-230-6429
Visiting Professor, CY-Cergy Paris University
Associate, IIT-Bombay
Associate, ICTS-TIFR, Bangalore (2017 - 2025)
Publications: for a detailed list, see Google Scholar, arXiv, ORCID
News
- Congratulations to Parswa Nath, a postdoc. His work on plastic deformations in active solid (arXiv) has been accepted for publication in Soft Matter (2026).
- Congratulations to Rajneesh Kumar, a postdoc, and my collaborator R. Srinivasan of NISER. Our work on FtsZ and Z-ring formation was published in PRX Life (2025).
- Our theoretical work, combined with live imaging of C. elegans neurons, helped reveal the regulation of molecular motor kinesin-3 transport; this work was published in Journal of Cell Science (March 2024), with an extension published in Physical Review E (2025) as an Editor’s Choice.
- We organized a Workshop on Physics of Life (February, 2024)
- Manish Patel’s work on inertial active particles is published in the New Journal of Physics, Dec 2023.
- Congratulations to Arpan Sinha and Chitrak Karan on the successful completion of their PhDs in December 2024. Both have since gone on to pursue postdoctoral research.
- Congratulations to Subhadip Ghosh and Shashideep Gutti. Our work on active pattern formation and dynamics on spherical membranes coupled to a model cytoskeleton was featured as a cover story in Soft Matter (December 2021).
- Congratulations, Amir Shee, for successfully completing his Ph.D. He joined the group of Prof.Cristian Huepe at Northwestern University, Chicago, USA, as a postdoc (2021)
- Congratulations to Amit Kumar on successfully completing his Ph.D. in December 2020 and on joining the group of Prof. Samuel Safran at the Weizmann Institute, Israel, as a postdoctoral researcher.
- Congratulations to Pinaki Swain on successfully completing his Ph.D. and joining the group of Prof. Stephanie Weber at McGill University, Montreal, Canada, in February 2020.
- Congratulations, Subhadip Ghosh, for successfully completing his Ph.D. in November 2018.
- Our work on ant traffic appeared in the NPR, USA, The Independent, UK, and Frontline, India; Dec 2015
Sponsored projects:
• Collective dynamics of active polymers (SERB, 2015; completed)
• Organization and dynamics of bacterial chromosome (SERB, 2016; completed)
• Stochastic thermodynamics of active particles and fields (SERB-MATRICS, 2020; completed)
Selected Recent publication (updated March, 2026)
- “Activated solids: Spontaneous deformations, non-affine fluctuations, softening, and failure”, P Nath, D Das, S Sengupta, D Chaudhuri, Soft Matter (2026)
- “Transport properties of the motor protein UNC-104 are robust and independent of changes in its cargo binding”, A Shee, V Sabharwal, S P. Koushika, A Nandi, D Chaudhuri, Phys Rev E 111, 064404 (2025). [Editors’ choice].
- “Mechanistic insights into Z-ring formation and stability: A Langevin dynamics approach to FtsZ self-assembly”, R Kumar, R Srinivasan, D Chaudhuri, PRX Life 3, 013009 (2025).
- “Active stop and go motion: a strategy to improve spatial exploration” Fernando Peruani, Debasish Chaudhuri, Phys. Rev. E 112, L033402 (2025).
- “Chirality, confinement and dimensionality govern re-entrant transitions in active matter”, A Pattanayak, A Shee, D Chaudhuri, A Chaudhuri; J Chem Phys. 163, 244902 (2025)
- “When an active bath behaves as an equilibrium one”, Shubhendu Shekhar Khali, Fernando Peruani, Debasish Chaudhuri, Phys. Rev. E109, 024120 (2024).
- “F-box protein FBXB-65 regulates anterograde transport of a Kinesin-3 motor UNC-104 through a PTM near its cargo-binding PH domain”, with Amitabha Nandi and Sandhya Koushika, J Cell Science, 261553, https://doi.org/10.1242/jcs.261553
- “How reciprocity impacts ordering and phase separation in active nematics?”, Arpan Sinha, Debasish Chaudhuri, Soft Matter 20, 788 (2024).
- “Exact moments and re-entrant transitions in the inertial dynamics of active Brownian particles”, Manish Patel, Debasish Chaudhuri, New Journal of Physics 25, 123048 (2023).
- “Cooperation and competition in the collective drive by motor proteins: mean active force, fluctuations, and self-load,” Karan, C. & Chaudhuri, D., Soft Matter 19, 1834 (2023).
- “Self-propulsion with speed and orientation fluctuation: Exact computation of moments and dynamical bistabilities in displacement”.Shee, A. & Chaudhuri, D., Phys. Rev. E 105, 054148 (2022).
- “Pattern formation, localized and running pulsation on active spherical membranes”. Ghosh, S., Gutti, S. & Chaudhuri, D., Soft Matter 17, 10614–10627 (2021); Appeared on Soft Matter cover
- “Active Brownian particle in harmonic trap: exact computation of moments, and re-entrant transition”, D Chaudhuri, A Dhar, J. Stat. Mech. Theory Exp.2021, 013207 (2021).
- “Active Brownian particles: mapping to equilibrium polymers and exact computation of moments”, A Shee, A Dhar, D Chaudhuri, Soft Matter16, 4776-4787 (2020).
- “Cell boundary confinement sets the size and position of the E. coli chromosome”, Fabai Wu, Pinaki Swain,..,Debasish Chaudhuri, Bela Mulder, Cees Dekker, Current Biology29, 2131 (2019).