Internationally recognized for his work on dynamical correlations and response functions in classical and quantum liquids, phonon-phonon interactions in solids, atomic interaction on metallic surface, Homogeneous electron gas in 1D.
In 1970, he was invited by Panjab University, Chandigarh, to join as a Reader in the Department of Physics. He became Professor of Physics in 1977 and remained Professor until 2001.He worked in various capacities as Head of the department of physics, Dean of faculty of science, Dean of university instruction, and thereafter vice-chancellor (2000–06).[3] After his superannuation, he worked as a senior scientist of the Indian National Science Academy and National Academy of Sciences, India for 10 Years.[4]
A Biography of Professor K.N. Pathak released in September 2006.[7] The book is written by Subhash Bhasker published by Unistar Books and has been translated in Hindi and English.
Jiwani Professor K N Pathak - Book By Subhash Bhasker[8]
Academic and research
K.N. Pathak has made distinct contributions in our understanding of structure and dynamics of classical & quantum liquids, including electron correlation effects in Coulomb systems. He is known for his contribution nationally and internationally particularly for obtaining several exact results for the dynamical correlation function for the above systems. His theory of phonon-phonon interaction in solids provides for the first time both thermodynamic and dynamic properties in a self-consistent manner. It has been successfully applied to explain various phenomena connected with phonon-phonon interaction.[9]
Research Papers published in international journals - 140 and Review Articles - 7.[10]
Supervised 13 PhD. Thesis and 6 M.Phil. Thesis. Supervised 5 postdoctoral fellows (Dr D K Chaturvedi, Dr Keya, Dharam Vir, Dr Vinod Ashokan, Dr Rajesh Sharma)
Theory of Anharmonic Crystals, (K. N. Pathak) Phys. Rev. 139 A, 1569-1580 (1965).[13]
Electron Correlation and Moment Sum Rules, (K. N. Pathak and P. Vashishta) Bull. Am. Phys. Soc. 17, 279 (1972) and Phys. Rev. B 7, 3649 (1973).[14]
Sum Rules and Atomic Correlations in Classical Liquids, (Ravinder Bansal and K. N. Pathak) Phys. Rev. A 9, 2773 (1974).[15]
Sum rules and Dynamical Properties of Two Dimensional Classical Electron Liquid, (G. K. Aggarwal and K. N. Pathak) J. Phys. C: Solid State Phys. 15, 5063 (1982).[16]
Collective Motion in Classical Liquids, (K. N. Pathak and K.S. Singwi) Bull. Am. Phys. Soc. 15, 323 (1970) and Phys. Rev. A 2, 2427-2434 (1970).[17]
Diamagnetic Susceptibility of an Interacting Electron Gas, (H. B. Singh and K. N. Pathak) Phys. Rev. B 11, 4246 (1975).[18]
Collective Excitations in Liquid Rubidium, (P. K. Kahol, Ravinder Bansal and K. N. Pathak) Phys. Rev. A 14, 408 (1976).[19]
Binary Collision Contributions to Atomic Motions in Fluids, (K. N. Pathak, S. Ranganathan and R. E. Johnson) Phys. Rev. E 50, 1135 (1994).
Self-diffusion coefficients of Lennard-Jones fluids (K Tankeshwar, K N Pathak and S Ranganathan)[20]
One-dimensional electron fluid at high density (Vinod Ashokan, N. D. Drummond, K. N. Pathak) Phys. Rev.B . 98, 125139 (2018)[21]
Exact ground-state properties of the one dimensional electron gas at high density (Vinod Ashokan, Renu Bala, Klaus Morawetz, and K. N. Pathak) Phys. Rev.B . 101, 075130 (2020)[22]