Dr Akshat Pandey

Dr Akshat Pandey

Physics
Post-Doctoral Research Fellow from 2025

Statistical mechanics seeks to discover mathematical structure that explains universal emergent phenomena in the physical world, or in the world of physically motivated theories. While randomly located impurities ("disorder") might appear to be a mere complication in this program, they frequently give rise to novel physics, and enrich the conceptual framework of statistical mechanics, most notably the theory of critical phenomena. I aim to construct organising principles in the theory of disordered systems, with an emphasis on phases and phase transitions dominated by disorder. 

Before I started my Fellowship at All Souls, I was a PhD student at Stanford University, advised by Steve Kivelson. You can find my thesis here. Before that, I was an undergraduate at the University of Cambridge.

Research Areas
Classical Zero-temperature Random Fixed Points, Such as Spin Glasses
Quantum Infinite-randomness Fixed Points
Relations Between the Above Two Subjects
Notions of Conformal Invariance in Disordered Systems
Localisation and Superconductivity in Interacting Electron Fluids
Training Dynamics of Large Neural Networks

Selected Publications

Akshat Pandey, Aditya Mahadevan, A. Alan Middleton, and Daniel S. Fisher, “Low-temperature transition of 2d random-bond Ising model and infinite quantum randomness”
Akshat Pandey and Aditya Cowsik, “Critical behavior of dirty free parafermionic chains”
Akshat Pandey, Aditya Mahadevan, and Aditya Cowsik, “Random geometry at an infinite-randomness fixed point”