Dr. Alakabha Datta is a Professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Mississippi.
Research Interests
My research is in various areas of particle phenomenology. I work mostly in flavor physics and recently my interests have included topics in quark flavor physics, non-standard Higgs interactions, neutrinos and dark matter physics.
There is a huge amount of data from flavor experiments. The B factories at BaBar, Belle, Belle II and LHCb have made many measurements in b quark decays and several anomalies have been reported that could indicate physics beyond the standard model (SM). I am interested in searching for new physics effects in flavor experiments using an effective theory framework and in specific models involving both heavy and light states. I am involved in exploring new sources of CP violation which are required to explain the matter-antimatter asymmetry observed in nature. Most extensions of the SM contain new CP violating phases, which do not have to be small as CP is not an exact or approximates symmetry of nature. Hence, discovery of non-SM CP violation phases is expected.
I also work in top quark properties and in the search for beyond the SM effects in top production, top decay, single top production and rare top decays. In the neutrino sector, my interest are in the study of the effects of sterile neutrinos in an effective theory framework. Finally, I am interested in various dark matter models that produce particles in the MeV-GeV range that can be produced in many flavor experiments.
Courses Taught
- Phys 211 Physics for Science and Engineering I
- Phys 212 Physics for Science and Engineering II
- Phys 213 General Physics I
- Phys 214 General Physics II
- Phys 308 Mathematical Physics
- Phys 451 Intro to Quantum Mechanics
- Phys 629 Standard Model of Particle Physics
- Phys 711 Quantum Mechanics I
- Phys 712 Quantum Mechanics II
- Phys 731 Quantum Field Theory I
- Phys 732 Quantum Field Theory II
Education
B.S. Physics, University of Calcutta (1983)
M.S. Physics, University of Delhi (1986)
Ph.D. Physics, University of Hawaii at Manoa (1995)