Shafaq Elahi

Background

About Shafaq Elahi

I am a Physics Ph.D. student at Northwestern University with an Integrated Bachelors-Master's Degree in Physics from IACS, Kolkata. With a deep fascination towards a fundamental understanding of our universe, I have a strong foundation in general relativity, quantum field theory, particle physics, and quantum metrology. In my master's thesis," Brane-world Solutions of 5-D f(R) Gravity and their Phenomenology", I explored the possibility that our universe might have an additional spatial dimension which unlike the other three, is compact and warped. In this thesis project, I worked on the stabilisation aspect of this extra-dimension and derived its experimental signatures in the context of early universe cosmology and collider physics. I also challenged myself to work on a project to extend the detection avenues of extra-dimensions to the novel table top tests for fundamental physics using ideas from quantum information theory and quantum optics. With my collaborator, we could show using an experimental protocol named "Quantum Gravity Mediated Entanglement" that it is indeed possible to detect the signatures of higher dimensions in this setup. With an experience in theoretical model building and deriving testable predictions of these models, I joined the Center for Fundamental Physics at NU to design novel experiments that will allow us to detect the signatures of physics beyond the Standard Model and bring us a step closer to understanding our physical reality.