Contents - Indian Institute of Astrophysics

Contents

Governing Council (2013–2014) iii

1 The Year In Review 1

2 RESEARCH 6

2.1 The Sun and the Solar System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

2.2 Stellar and GalacticAstrophysics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18

2.3 Extragalactic Astronomy and Cosmology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29

2.4 Atomic and Molecular Physics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40

2.5 Experimental Astro-physics and Instrumentation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42

3 PUBLICATIONS 44

4 INSTRUMENTS AND FACILITIES 56

4.1 Systems EngineeringGroup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56

4.2 Photonics Laboratory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56

4.3 Electronics Laboratory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57

4.4 OBSERVATORIES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57

4.4.1 Indian Astronomical Observatory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57

4.4.2 Centre for Research & Education in Science & Technology (CREST) . . 60

4.4.3 Kodaikanal Observatory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60

4.4.4 Vainu Bappu Observatory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61

4.4.5 GauribidanurObservatory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62

4.5 Library . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64

5 UPCOMING FACILITIES 66

5.1 Thirty Meter Telescope . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66

5.2 ADITYA 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67

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5.3 National Large Solar Telescope . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69

5.4 Ultra-Violet Imaging Telescope (UVIT) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70

5.5 High Resolution Spectrometer for HCT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70

6 STUDENTS’ PROGRAMS AND TRAINING ACTIVITIES 73

6.1 Ph.D. Degree Awarded . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73

6.2 Ph.D. Thesis Submitted . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73

6.3 Completion of M.Sc. & M.Tech Program . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74

6.4 Visiting InternshipProgram . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74

6.5 Summer Projects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74

7 PUBLIC OUTREACH ACTIVITIES 76

7.1 Activities at Bangalore . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76

7.2 Activities at VainuBappu Observatory,Kavalur . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78

7.3 Activities at Indian Astronomical Observatory, Hanle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79

7.4 Centre for Research & Education in Science & Technology . . . . . . . . . . . . 79

8 MISCELLANEOUS ACTIVITIES BY IIA STAFF 84

8.1 Talks given in national/international meetings outside IIA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84

8.1.1 Popular lectures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93

8.1.2 Public Outreach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94

8.2 Staff Activities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96

8.2.1 Welfare of SC/ST Staff & Physically challenged . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96

8.2.2 Official Language Implementation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96

9 STAFF LIST 2013 – 2014 98

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Governing Council (2013–2014)

Dr K. Kasturirangan (Chair) (upto 11.10.2013)Member (Science), Planning CommissionYojana Bhavan, New Delhi 110 [email protected]

Professor P. C. Agrawal (Chair) (from 12.10.2013)Center for Excellence in Basic SciencesUniversity of MumbaiMumbai 400 [email protected]

Dr T. Ramasami Member Dr P. Sreekumar MemberSecretary, Dept of Science & Technology (Ex-officio) Director, IIA (from 1.7.2013) SecretaryNew Mehrauli Road Koramangala, (Ex-officio)New Delhi 110 016 Bengaluru 560 [email protected] [email protected]

Ms Anuradha Mitra, IDAS Member Professor N. Mukunda MemberJoint Secretary & Financial Adviser (Ex-officio) Chairman, Joint Education PanelDept of Science & Technology Indian Academy of SciencesNew Mehrauli Road, New Delhi 110 016 C.V. Raman Avenue, Bengaluru 560 [email protected] [email protected]

Professor S. Ananthakrishnan Member Professor J. V. Narlikar MemberINSA Senior Professor Emeritus Professor (upto 10.1.2014)Electronics Science Department IUCAAPune University Campus, Ganeshkhind Pune University Campus, GaneshkhindPune 411 007 Pune 411 [email protected] [email protected]

Professor S. M. Chitre Member Professor Ram Sagar MemberCentre for Excellence in Basic Sciences House No.610, 1st E Cross roadUniversity of Mumbai 8th Block, KoramangalaMumbai 400 098 Bengaluru 560 [email protected] ram [email protected]

Professor Bhanu Pratap Das MemberSr Professor & Director (Acting), IIA SecretaryKoramangala, Bengaluru 560 034 (Ex-officio)[email protected] (upto 30.6.2013)

iii

Honorary Fellows

Professor M. G. K. Menon, FRSC-178, Sarvodaya Enclave, New Delhi 110 017

Professor P. Buford PricePhysics Department, University California, Berkeley, USA

Professor Sir Arnold W. Wolfendale, FRSEmeritus Professor, Department of Physics, Durham University, UK

Professor D. L. LambertDepartment of Astronomy, University of Texas, Austin, USA

Professor B. V. SreekantanNational Institute of Advanced Studies (NIAS), Bengaluru 560 012

†Professor S. Chandrasekhar, Nobel Laureate (1995)

†Professor R. M. Walker (2004)

†Professor Hermann Bondi, FRS (2005)

†Professor V. Radhakrishnan (2011)

†deceased

iv

Chapter 1

The Year In Review

On July 1, 2013, I undertook the enviablejob of directing India’s oldest and largest as-tronomy institution for a 5-year period. Themultitude of academic and research activitiesin this institute reflects the continued growthof astronomy and astrophysics research pro-grams in the country. I am glad to reportthat during the period of 2013–14, the In-stitute made important contributions to re-search, developing and establishing advanceresearch facilities, producing well-trained hu-man resources and in taking science to thepublic at large. I present here some of thesignificant achievements of the Institute dur-ing this period.

The scope of research in this instituteranges from the Sun and the solar system,stars, our Galaxy, external galaxies and tosources and processes associated with the far-thest regions of the observational Universe.

In the field of Solar Physics, properties ofsmall-scale magnetism of solar atmosphereswere studied using 3D Magneto-convectionsimulations. The nature of small-scale vortexmotions and their relationship with magneticfields on the solar photosphere were inves-tigated through detailed statistical analysis.Observational evidences were found support-ing the idea that polar jets are likely to beproduced by multiple small-scale reconnec-tions occurring at different times in differ-ent locations. The interactions among theemerging fields give rise to magnetic recon-nections followed by mass ejections with col-limated hot plasma flows commonly termedas jets. It is observed that the bright pointassociated with the first such jet is a partof a sigmoid structure. The dynamical be-haviour of a jet in an on-disk coronal holeobserved with AIA/SDO is studied in detail.Paschen-Back effect in the hyperfine struc-ture states of an atom in the solar atmo-sphere and the quantum interference signa-tures of the Ba II D2 4554 Aline in the sec-ond solar spectrum have been investigated.The solar photospheric vector magnetogramsare simulated by using linear and nonlinearforce-free (NLFF) magnetic fields assuming asimple axisymmetric configurations in spher-ical geometry. The sunspot whorls are stud-ied by using Big Bear Solar Observatory &Kodaikanal Observatory data. The X-raySolar Monitor (XSM) on the Indian lunar

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2 Indian Institute of Astrophysics

mission Chandrayaan-1 provided a uniquedataset which was used to derive solar coro-nal abundances and study its variation as theflare progressed.

In the area of planetary studies, datafrom the Chandrayaan-1 X-ray Spectrom-eter (C1XS) experiment, provided for thefirst time unambiguous evidence of enhancedSodium from the lunar surface.

In stellar and galactic astrophysics, clas-sical novae Nova Cephei 2013 and Nova Del-phini 2013 were observed in the optical andNIR using the 2m Himalayan Chandra Tele-scope (HCT) and in the radio using the Gi-ant Meterwave Radio Telescope (GMRT).High resolution spectra of Nova Delphini2013 were also obtained with the 2.3m VainuBappu Telescope (VBT). The 2014 outburstof the recurrent nova V745 Sco was moni-tored spectroscopically using the VBT. Pho-tometric observations were made with the1.3m JCBT. The recurrent novae T CrB,RS Oph, CI Aql,U Sco and V3890 Sgr con-tinue to be monitored during their quiescencephase as a part of the spectroscopic monitor-ing programme to study the long term be-haviour of these systems. A detailed opticaland UV analysis of SN 2012dn was carriedout. Properties of newly formed dust grainsin the luminous Type IIn Supernova 2010jlwere investigated. The optical observationsof type Ib supernova iPTF 13bvn obtainedwith the HCT, were used to compute thebolometric light curve. The hydrodynami-cal modelling of bolometric light curve showsthat the progenitor had a pre-SN mass of ∼3.5M⊙. Therefore, an interacting binary sys-tem as the SN progenitor is proposed. Froma detailed analysis of multi-wavelength pho-tometry of young clusters, it is found thatthe star formation process is continuous forthe clusters Be 59, NGC 604 and NGC 7510but the process is episodic for the clustersNGC 1931 and NGC 7261. Extended V and I

time-series observations of four globular clus-ters NGC 7099, NGC 7492, NGC 6333 andNGC 288 yielded high-precision light curvesof variable stars which enable search for newvariable stars in these clusters and refine pe-riods of known variables. For the first time,low-resolution spectroscopic survey has iden-tified four relatively-hydrogen-deficient (H-deficient) stars in the red giant sample of theglobular cluster Omega Cen.

In the area of extra-galactic Astronomyand Cosmology, a few gravitational-lensedquasars were systematically monitored. Asample of 77 Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN)was observed on a total of 262 nights using1-2m class optical telescopes located in In-dia and the optical flux variations on minuteto hour time scales with amplitudes rang-ing from few hundredths to few tenths of amagnitude were determined. AGN activityand black hole masses in Low Surface Bright-ness galaxies were investigated by retrievingSDSS spectra of 650 galaxies from a sampleof 1200 Low Surface Brightness galaxies pro-vided in various catalogues. Dual-frequencyphase-referenced VLBI observations of theSeyfert galaxy KISSR1494 were carried out.A single, slightly resolved radio componentat 1.6 GHz is detected, but not at 5 GHz.This implies a spectral index steeper than-1.5±-0.5 for the galaxy. A general relativis-tic model of jet variability in active galacticnuclei from a helical bulk flow along a fun-nel shaped magnetic surface anchored to theaccretion disk close to the black hole is de-veloped. The neutral atomic Hydrogen (HI)kinematics of the Large Magellanic Cloudis revisited in the light of two new propermotion estimates. The well known arms E,S, W, B and a new stream, Outer Arm,as part of various outer components of theLMC are identified. Results from the largestCaII triplet line metallicity study of SmallMagellanic Cloud field red giant stars involv-

Indian Institute of Astrophysics 3

ing 3037 objects spread across approximately37.5 deg2, centered on this galaxy were ob-tained. A median metallicity of [Fe/H]=-0.99±0.01, with clear evidence for an abun-dance gradient of -0.075±0.011 dex/degreeover the inner 5 degrees was detected.

In the area of theoretical physics, thephases of ultra-cold atoms in lattices formedby lasers in the presence of an additional po-tential were examined. Multi reference Fock-space coupled cluster has been applied toevaluate the ionization potential (IP), exci-tation energies (EE), nuclear magnetic hy-perfine constant etc. for singly ionized Eka-Lead (Fl II). Similar calculations are alsoperformed for Lead ion (Pb II) to assess theaccuracy of the theoretical estimates of Flion.

One of the most important activities of theInstitute is the graduate student programme.As in previous years, a large number of brightstudents have joined the Ph.D. and Inte-grated M.Tech-Ph.D. programmes offered bythe Institute. I am happy to report that asmany as four students have been awarded thedoctoral degree during this period and threestudents have submitted their thesis towardscompletion of their Ph.D. A large number ofUniversity students also participated in pur-suing a variety of summer projects.

A few important instrument facilities forvarious observatories were designed and de-veloped during this academic year. A fulldisk solar imaging telescope WARM (Whitelight Active Region Monitor), has been de-signed and developed in-house to facilitateavailability of long-term data products tothe solar community. The Kodaikanal dig-itized images are now archived at the datacenter of the institute. The archive hosts41,000 images of the Ca-K spectroheliogramsas observed over a period from 1904 to 2007.Design, detailed engineering, manufactureand assembly of “Imager” for testing the

1.3 m telescope to check the image qualityand field of view of the telescope was com-pleted. This instrument is planned to bemounted on other telescopes at VBO for sim-ilar checks. A new set-up for ground basedspectro-polarimetric observations of the solarradio transients in the frequency range 35–85MHz was recently commissioned at the Gau-ribidanur radio observatory.

The UVIT instrument which is designedto be the world’s best UV imager, sufferedan unexpected setback due to the failure ofthe visible detector during the final vibrationtest. Corrective actions are being taken andthe payload is expected to be delivered soonto ISRO for integration into ASTROSAT.

Among the new initiative for upcoming fa-cilities, the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT)project reached some key milestones. On24th July of 2013, in the meeting of the boardof Directors at Hawaii, USA, the scientificauthorities of the respective partner coun-tries executed the master agreement agree-ing for basic governing principles of the part-nership, contributions, observing time etc.With the consent of Department of Scienceand Technology, I have signed the masteragreement representing India TMT whichis jointly implemented by Indian Instituteof Astrophysics (IIA), Inter University Cen-tre for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IU-CAA) and Aryabhatta Research Institute forObservational Sciences (ARIES). Prof. B.Eswar Reddy represented India TMT at thesigning ceremony. The overall instrumentconfiguration for ADITYA 1 Visible Emis-sion Line Coronograph (VELC) was finalizedand most of the component level designs arecompleted. Base line Design review is com-pleted for all subsystems including mechan-ical structure. The preliminary thermal andstructural analysis are completed. Consider-able effort went into the selection of the de-tector, configuration of electronic, mechan-


Left: Dr P. Sreekumar seen with Professor G. Srinivasan who delivered the Founder’s daylecture entitled “Down Memory Lane - Vainu Bappu’s Dreams Revisited” on 8th August, 2013.Right: Professor T. Padmanabhan of IUCAA, Pune delivering the Vainu Bappu MemorialLecture entitled “Conceptual Conundrums in Cosmology”.

ical and thermal interfaces, optimization ofcamera electronics and design of on-boarddata processing schemes. Other projects likethe National Large Solar Telescope (NLST)have gained substantial progress during thisacademic year with activities related to thedesign and development of prototype focalplane instruments. Besides these upcom-ing facilities, a high resolution spectrometer(HESP) is being fabricated to enhance ob-servational capabilities for the 2m HimalayanChandra Telescope (HCT) at Hanle. HESPis currently in an advanced stage with theinstrument expected to be installed for trialobservations later this year. The new 1.3mtelescope established at Kavalur is currentlyin its final stage of field testing and optimi-sation.

I am delighted to inform that the Gov-erning Council has elected Professor B.V.Sreekantan to the Honorary Fellowship of theInstitute for his illustrious scientific contribu-tions in general and to the Institute in par-ticular as a Member of the Council (1988– 1992) and subsequently as its Chairman(1992 – 2007). The Institute had the hon-our of hosting three prestigious lectures: theVainu Bappu Memorial Lecture - “Concep-

tual Conundrums in Cosmology” was pre-sented by Professor T. Padmanabhan of IU-CAA, Pune on the 5th July, 2013, the IIAFounder’s Day Lecture - “Down MemoryLane - Vainu Bappu’s Dreams Revisited”was delivered by Professor G. Srinivasan on8th August, 2013 and the 23rd Bicenten-nial Commemorative Public Lecture - “TheSearch for a Unified Theory” was deliveredby Professor Ashoke Sen on 9th December,2013.

I am happy to report that Professor An-napurni Subramaniam was elected as Fel-low of the Indian Academy of Sciences, Ben-galuru and also as Fellow of the NationalAcademy of Sciences, Allahabad. Dr. M.Sampoorna has been awarded the Young Sci-entist Platinum Jubilee award of NASI (Na-tional Academy of Sciences India) for theyear 2013 and Mr. A. Prasad has beenawarded Shyama Prasad Mukherjee Fellow-ship for SRF by CSIR. Prof.S.S.Hasan hasbeen elected to the Life Membership of theClare Hall College, Cambridge.

The public outreach activities of the Insti-tute were spread across all field stations. TheNational Science Day was celebrated andsky watch for general public was organized


The 23rd Bicentennial Commemorative PublicLecture entitled “The Search for a Unified The-ory” was delivered by Professor Ashoke Sen,FRS on the 9th of December, 2013.

at Bengaluru as well as Kavalur campuses.The Institute has taken several steps forthe implementation of the Official Languageand the welfare of SC/ST and physically-challenged staff. The list of scientific publi-cations in peer reviewed journals, conferenceproceedings as well as in monographs, booksand popular periodicals are listed in this re-port.

I would like to place on record the in-debtedness of the Institute to Dr K. Kas-

turirangan (Member of the Council 1988 -2007; Chairman: 1-4-2007 to 11-10-2013)and Prof.J.V.Narlikar (Member: 1-4-2007 to10-1-2014). Their strong support and guid-ance enabled the Institute to embark on set-ting up several new astronomical facilities.We warmly welcome Professor P.C. Agrawal,the new Chair of the IIA Governing Council(from 12-10-2013).

Today IIA is playing an important and re-sponsible role in developing many new astro-nomical facilities catering to the needs of thebroader Indian astronomical community, of-ten in close collaboration with other leadinginstitutes in the country. These activities de-mand optimal use of available scientific andtechnical expertise. The formation of the IIACouncil, the creation of the Systems Engi-neering Group, the expansion of the Facultygroup, conducting comprehensive reviews ofongoing developmental programs, encourag-ing enhanced activities at field stations andenabling recruitment of essential human re-sources, are some of the initiatives taken dur-ing this period. I truly believe that with sev-eral new facilities in the pipeline and somenearing completion, the Institute will con-tinue to enhance its scientific productivityand excel in the field of Astrophysics duringthe coming years.

P. Sreekumar

Director

Chapter 2

RESEARCH

2.1 The Sun and the So-

lar System

Frequency-dependent damping in prop-agating slow magneto-acoustic waves

Enhanced time-distance maps (top) and period-distance maps (bottom) in 171 and 193 channelsof AIA, generated from the interplume region.

Polar plume/interplume regions and extendedfan loop structures in active regions of theSun are often found to host outward prop-agating slow magneto-acoustic waves. Be-sides their contribution to coronal heatingand solar wind acceleration, they are impor-tant for their seismological applications. Theobserved periodicities of these waves rangefrom a few minutes to few tens of minutesand their amplitudes were found to decayrapidly as they travel along the supportingstructure. Our recent studies indicate that

the observed damping in these waves is fre-quency dependent. We have used imagingdata from SDO/AIA, to study this depen-dence in detail. For the first time we at-tempted to deduce a quantitative relation be-tween damping length and frequency of theseoscillations by using observational data.

(S. Krishna Prasad, D. Banerjee & T. VanDoorsselaere*)

Characteristics of polar coronal holejets

Polar jets and X-ray bright points are promi-nent dynamical features of coronal hole re-gions of the sun. Soft X-ray jets were discov-ered in Yohkoh/ SXT data. In the coronalhole region the ambient magnetic fields arenearly vertical and often unipolar. The inter-action among the emerging fields gives riseto reconnection followed by mass ejections,with collimated hot plasma flows commonlytermed as jets. We find observational evi-dences supporting the idea that polar jets arelikely to be produced by multiple small-scalereconnections occurring at different times indifferent locations and ejecting plasma blobsflowing up and down with a motion verysimilar to a simple ballistic motion. It wasalso observed that the bright point associ-ated with the first jet is a part of a sigmoidstructure. The time of appearance of the sig-moid and ejection of plasma from the bright

6


The fine structure of a X-ray bright point anddifferent jets as seen from XRT on Hionde.

point suggest that the sigmoid is progenitorof the jet.

(K. Chandrashekhar, A. Bemporad*, D. Baner-jee, G. R. Gupta* & L. Teriaca*)

The dynamical behaviour of a jet inan on-disk coronal hole observed withAIA/SDO

Over the last two decades, it has becomeevident that the large-scale ejection of col-limated plasma from the lower solar atmo-sphere into the corona occurs on a regular

basis. These events, referred to as EUV, X-ray or coronal plasma jets, are common incoronal holes and at the coronal hole bound-aries. These jets are often considered as a po-tential mechanism for supplying the coronawith heated plasma and maintaining the so-lar wind. We study the properties of thejets in relation to the wave phenomena ob-served in them and attempt coronal seismol-ogy studies to determine coronal magneticfields and plasma parameters that otherwisecannot be determined by direct methods.

(D. Banerjee)

Paschen Back Effect in the hyperfinestructure states of an atom

Polarization diagram. β = 0◦ and β = 90◦ rep-resent horizontal and vertical magnetic fields, re-spectively, with β being the angle between thescattered ray and the field vector. The symbolsrepresent the value of field strength in G.

Magnetic field can split the hyperfine struc-ture states (F ) into magnetic substates. Ifthe magnetic splitting is comparable to orlarger than the energy difference betweenthe F -states, magnetic field effects are de-scribed by the Paschen-Back effect (PBE).


In PBE, the magnetic splitting varies non-linearly with the field strength, leading tolevel-crossing interference effects. Recently,we have formulated the theory of F -state in-terference in the presence of magnetic fieldsof arbitrary strengths and derived the partialfrequency redistribution (PRD) matrix. Wehave considered the single-scattering case bytaking the example of Na i D2 line at 5889.95A. In the PBE regime, the magnetic sub-states belonging to different F -states over-lap, resulting in the formation of loops inthe polarization diagram (Q/I vs. U/I; seeFigure).The upper loop (near 8 G, see blackcurve) disappears for wavelengths away fromthe line center while the lower loop (near20 G) becomes bigger. When the field isvertical, ‘anti-level crossing’ effect occurs be-cause of the basis transformation of the en-ergy eigenstates in the PBE regime. As aresult of this, the Q/I line core value, whenconsidered as a function of field strength, ini-tially decreases and then increases beyond itsnon-magnetic value. The formulation is use-ful in exploiting the diagnostic potential ofPBE with PRD, complementary to the Zee-man effect, to determine the strengths andgeometry of magnetic fields in the solar at-mosphere.

(K. Sowmya, K. N. Nagendra, M. Sampoorna,& J. O. Stenflo*)

Rayleigh and Raman scattering polar-ization in spectral lines

The polarized spectrum of the Sun is formedthrough the scattering of anisotropic radia-tion on atoms. Interpretation of this spec-trum requires the solution of polarized linetransfer in multilevel atomic systems takingaccount of both the Rayleigh and Ramanscattering. If the initial and final states in-volved in scattering are the same then it isreferred to as the Rayleigh scattering, and

when they are different it is called Ramanscattering. In the case of strong resonancelines, it is necessary to include the realis-tic scattering mechanism, namely, the partialfrequency redistribution (PRD). The theo-ries of polarized line formation in a multi-level atom, formulated in the literature sofar, confined themselves to the approxima-tion of complete frequency redistribution, forthe sake of mathematical simplicity.

S24 1/2

P24 1/2 P

24 3/2

D24 3/2

D24 5/2

(1)

(2) (3)

(4) (5)

IICaFive−level model atom

3969

(H

)

3934

(K)

86628498

8542

Five-level Ca II atom model. Energy levels arenot drawn to scale.

Normalized emergent intensity (I/B) and the de-gree of linear polarization (Q/I) profiles for fiveallowed transitions of a five-level Ca II atommodel shown in the above Figure.

The physical realism on the other hand re-quires us to use the mechanism of PRD. How-ever the necessary formulation of the trans-fer problem itself did not exist. We haveformulated a new approximate approach to


this problem. The proposed theory is ap-plied to a five-level Ca II atom model takingaccount of multi-level coupling. The secondfigure shows the emergent linear polarizationprofiles for this model atom. The linear po-larizations of the H and 8662 Alines are zero(as their polarizability factor is zero). Thelinear polarization of the IR triplet is basi-cally due to the “multilevel coupling” withthe K line.

(M. Sampoorna, K. N. Nagendra, J. O. Sten-flo*)

Modeling the quantum interference sig-natures of the Ba II D2 4554 A line inthe second solar spectrum

Theory

A fit to the observed (I,Q/I) profiles using themodified model atmosphere.

The linearly polarized spectrum of the Sun isformed due to coherent scattering processesin which quantum interference phenomenaplays a vital role. The Ba II D2 line at4554 A is a good example, governed by the

F-state interference effects, seen only in thelines of odd isotopes which undergo hyperfinestructure splitting. These odd isotopes of Baconstitute only 18% of the total Ba abun-dance in the Sun, the rest 82% being evenisotopes which do not exhibit F-state inter-ferences. It is therefore necessary to accountfor the contributions from different isotopesto understand the observed linear polariza-tion profiles of this line. We study the ra-diative transfer model with partial frequencyredistribution (PRD) of such observations,while accounting for the interference effectsand isotopic composition. The Ba II D2 po-larization profile is found to be strongly gov-erned by the PRD mechanism. We also findthat the line center polarization is sensitiveto the temperature structure of the model at-mosphere. To obtain a good fit to the peak atline center of the observed Stokes Q/I profile,a small modification of one of the 1D modelatmospheres is needed. A fit to the observedprofiles recorded near the solar limb, usingthis modified model is shown in the figure.

(H. N. Smitha, K. N. Nagendra, J. O. Sten-flo* & M. Sampoorna)

Role of solar magnetic carpet in theheating of the quiet atmosphere

In the quiet solar photosphere, the mixed po-larity fields form a magnetic carpet, whichcontinuously evolves due to dynamical inter-action between the convective motions andmagnetic field. This interplay is a viablesource to heat the solar atmosphere. In thiswork, the line-of-sight (LOS) magnetogramsobtained from the Helioseismic and MagneticImager (HMI) on the Solar Dynamics Ob-servatory (SDO), and the Imaging Magne-tograph eXperiment (IMaX) instrument onthe Sunrise balloon-borne observatory havebeen used to study the evolution of the coro-


Horizontal mean of the energy flux plotted asfunction of height. Left panel: Mean energyflux over an emerging region (ER; red) and aquiet region (QR; blue) observed by HMI. Rightpanel: Mean energy flux in the IMaX dataset(blue) and Source Model (red) averaged over theentire FOV. As an illustration, a grey stripedbox is drawn at 2-6 Mm range to compare theenergy flux between the two panels at thoseheights. The energy flux into the corona aspredicted by our magnetic carpet simulations isabout one order of magnitude smaller than theestimated radiative and conductive losses fromthe quiet-Sun corona as derived from EUV andX-ray observations.

nal magnetic field. A magneto-frictional re-laxation method has been used to producetime series of three-dimensional (3D) nonlin-ear force-free fields from a sequence of pho-tospheric LOS magnetograms. Vertical flowsare added up to a height of 0.7 Mm in themodel to simulate the non-force-freeness atthe photosphere-chromosphere layers. Amongthe derived quantities, the spatial and tem-poral variations of the energy dissipationrate, and energy flux are studied. The re-sults show that the energy deposited in thesolar atmosphere is concentrated within 2Mm of the photosphere and there is not suffi-cient energy flux at the base of the corona tocover radiative and conductive losses. Pos-sible reasons and implications are discussed.Better observational constraints of the mag-netic field in the chromosphere are crucial tounderstand the role of the magnetic carpet

in coronal heating.

(L.P. Chitta, R. Kariyappa, A. A. van Bal-legooijen*, E. E. DeLuca* & S. K. Solanki*)

Segmentation of solar photospheric mag-netic elements

Understanding the role of magnetic field inthe EUV and UV solar irradiance variabilityis an important task in solar physics, par-ticularly a one-to-one spatial correspondencebetween the different photospheric magneticfeatures and coronal emission structures. TheSpatial possibilistic Clustering Algorithm(SpoCA) has been applied on AIA spatiallyresolved images and HMI magnetograms tocreate segmentation maps for Active Regions(ARs), Coronal Holes (CHs) and Quiet Sun(QS). The AIA segmentation maps are thenapplied on full-disk HMI line-of-sight of mag-netograms. The different parameters suchas the intensity, the magnetic field and con-tribution of ARs/CHs/QS features are com-puted and compared with the full-disk in-tegrated intensity, absolute magnetic fieldand LYRA EUV and UV irradiance measure-ments. A one-to-one spatial correspondencebetween the photospheric magnetic featuresand coronal features has been determined. Itis found that the intensity is related with thestrength of the magnetic field associated withAR and QS regions, whereas the intensity ofCH is not related to its magnetic field.

(R. Kariyappa, J. J. Zender*, G. Giono*, L.P. Chitta, S. T. Kumara* & L. Dame*)

On the nature of vortex flows and itsrelationship to magnetic fields in solarphotosphere

Through a detailed statistical analysis of small-scale vortex motions and their relationshipwith magnetic fields on the solar photosphere,


the following major result has been obtained:small-scale vortex motions, and hence kinetichelicity of flows, found in the converging su-pergranular flow regions obey a hemisphericrule similar to that found for the current he-licity of similar small-scale magnetic field.This implies transfer or decay of magnetic he-licity to fluid helicity (kinetic), or vice versa,and it has fundamental implications for pro-cesses related to dynamo action. Further di-agnostic of this phenomenon is being devisedand studied. This work has used the He-lioseismic and Magnetic Imager (HMI)/SDOobservations of Doppler velocities, line-of-sight magnetic field, the continuum and line-core intensities (in the 6173 Fe I line).

(S. P. Rajaguru & C. R. Sangeetha)

Separable solutions of force-free spheresand applications to solar active regions

A systematic study of the linear and non-linear force-free (NLFF) magnetic field equa-tions for simple axisymmetric configurationsin spherical geometry was undertaken. Newsolutions for the NLFF fields are obtainedand applied to simulate the solar photo-spheric vector magnetograms (see Figure).We developed a search strategy, the effec-tiveness of which is demonstrated through itseffective reproduction of known field config-urations. The strategy is then used to ob-tain best-fit to the solar spectropolarimet-ric data from the Hinode satellite. Basedon these fits, we build three-dimensional ax-isymmetric field configurations and calculatethe energy and relative helicity for active re-gions (ARs) in the Sun. Five magnetogramsfor AR10930 over three days (during whichtwo X-class flares occurred) are analyzed tostudy the evolution of free energy and rela-tive helicity during this period. Our analy-sis shows a distinct peak in these quantitiesbefore the flares, consistent with the results

in literature. We have also analyzed single-polarity regions AR 10923 and 10933 whichare described well using potential fields. Thismethod is thus a useful reconstruction tech-nique for the NLFF fields.

The sections for different non-linear force-freefields, taken perpendicular to the radius at r =0.05 with parameters (n,m, r1, θ, φ) =(7/5, 2,0.29,1.75,4.14), (3/2, 3, 0.29,1.75,4.14), (9/5, 1,0.39, 0.18, 4.14) are shown in the top, middleand bottom rows respectively. In the left col-umn, the contours represent the magnetic fieldprojected on to the plane of the figure and thedensity plot represents the strength of the fieldperpendicular to it. The circles are drawn atradius r1. The middle column is a section ofthe field and the right column is a section ofthe resulting current density. The legends rep-resenting the strength of component normal tothe page are shown below corresponding to theleft and middle/right columns. The 0 and 1 inthe legend scale correspond to the minimum andmaximum values of the normal magnetic fieldrespectively.

(A. Prasad, A. Mangalam & B. Ravindra)

Spectroscopy of the solar corona usingHINODE observations

There have been reports of asymmetries andexcess blueshifts in coronal line profiles from


both ground-based and space observations.These are interpreted in terms of nanoflareheating, type II spicules and nascent solarwind flow. Owing to its high spectral andspatial resolutions, EUV Imaging Spectrom-eter(EIS) on board HINODE observations isuseful in the studies of solar corona. Theemission line spectra from HINODE/EIS ob-servations have been analysed using the So-lar SoftWare(SSW). A series of emission linesfrom highly ionized atoms from Fe VIII toFeXV are used in the study. The character-istics of emission line profiles from differentcoronal regions were obtained.

(K. P. Raju)

Studies of chromospheric network us-ing Kodaikanal Ca K data

The Ca-K images of the Sun from Kodaikanalhave a data span of about 100 years. Thiscovers over 9 solar cycles and hence a goodopportunity to study the synoptic solar ac-tivity. The Ca-K images are dominated bythe chromospheric network and plages whichare good indicators of activity. Further, theCa-K line is a good proxy to the UV irradi-ance. This is particularly useful in the pre-satellite era where UV measurements are notavailable. The archival data is now availablein the digitized form. Programs have beendeveloped for data reduction and analysis.Some preliminary results on the network andplage indices were obtained from the Ca-Kimages.

(K. P. Raju)

Synoptic study of the solar EUV net-work using SOHO/CDS data

The chromospheric network, the bright emis-sion network seen in the chromospheric linessuch as Ca-K and H-alpha, outline the super-

granulation cells. The solar EUV networkis essentially the continuation of the chro-mospheric network in the transition region.The Coronal Diagnostic Spectrometer(CDS)on board Solar and Heliospheric Observatory(SOHO) provides spectroscopic data fromthe solar meridian in the EUV range every-day. Using Intensity distribution and statis-tical modelling, the properties of the EUVnetwork were examined over roughly one so-lar cycle(1998-2011). Statistical central ten-dency measures and curve fitting procedureswere employed to separate the network andcell areas. The EUV network index is ob-tained for the O V 630 A.

(K. P. Raju)

Depth dependence of north-south asym-metry in the differential rotation ofsunspot groups

The Greenwich (1874-1976) and Solar Opti-cal Observing Network (1977-2011) sunspotgroup data have been analysed and it wasfound that the latitude dependence in themean rotation rate of the sunspot groups wellmatches with that of Sun’s internal rotationrate at 0.94 - 0.98 solar radius. There isonly a slight or no significant difference inthe latitude dependencies of the mean rota-tion rates of sunspot groups in the north-ern and the southern hemisphere. However,there exists a reasonable difference betweenthe latitude dependencies in the mean ini-tial rotation rates of sunspot groups (deter-mined by using the heliographic positions ofthe sunspot groups during the first two daysof their life times) in the northern and thesouthern hemisphere. This is mainly dueto the initial rotation of the sunspot groupsreasonably slower in 10-20 deg latitudes ofthe northern hemisphere than in the corre-sponding latitude interval of the southern


The latitudinal dependence of the mean ‘initialrotation rates’ of the sunspot groups whose lifetimes are in the ranges 2-12 days and determinedby averaging the daily rotation rates of sunspotgroups obtained from the Greenwich and SOONsunspot group data during May/1874 - Decem-ber/2011 over 2 deg latitude intervals of (a)northern hemisphere and (b) southern hemi-sphere.

hemisphere Since the average size of sunspotgroups in 10-20 deg latitude interval is largeand large sunspot groups initially anchorat deeper layers, the aforesaid result sug-gests that north-south asymmetry in the so-lar deferential rotation originate at the Sun’sdeeper subsurface layers

(J. Javaraiah)

Long-term variations in the north-southasymmetry in the numbers of small andlarge sunspot groups

Variations in the number of large to the numberof small sunspot groups ratio. The green, black,and red colours represent the small (maximumarea ArmM < 100 millionth of solar hemisphere,msh), large (100leArmM < 300 msh), and big(ArmMge300 msh) sunspot groups. The dotsrepresent the international sunspot number.

Recently it was found that anomalous be-haviour of solar cycle 23 (the violation ofeven-odd cycle rule by the cycles pair (22,23)) is mainly due to a large scarcity ofsmall sunspot groups in cycle 23. The com-bined Greenwich and SOON sunspot groupdata during the period 1874-2013 are anal-ysed. It is found that the aforementionedscarcity of small sunspot groups in cycle 23is largely contributed by the southern hemi-sphere sunspot activity. It is also found thatthe large to small sunspot groups ratio islarger during the rising phase of the currentsolar cycle 24 than that of the correspondingphase of cycle 23 This could be a reason for,as found by some authors, that during therising phase of the current solar cycle 24 thecoronal mass ejection (CME) rate was rela-


tively large whereas it is almost certain thatthe cycle 24 is weak

(J. Javaraiah)

Non-dependence of magnitude of ab-normal rotation rates of sunspots withlatitude

We continue the study of magnitude of ab-normal rotation rates of bipolar sunspots us-ing historical Kodaikanal Observatory photo-heliographic data and their association withthe durations of flares. In the previous study,it was found that irrespective of their lati-tudes, occurrence of flares is strongly asso-ciated with the occurrence of abnormal ro-tation rates of sunspots. This gave a stronghint that magnetic reconnection that is sup-posed to be sole energy input to the flaresoccurs below the observed surface. However,it is not clear whether occurrences of abnor-mal rates also depend upon the latitude. Toascertain the same, in the present study us-ing Kodaikanal Observatory data, the abnor-mal rotation rates that are associated withthe flares have been computed. It was foundthat magnitudes of abnormal rotation ratesof sunspots is independent of latitude. Thissuggests that the sub-surface dynamics re-sponsible for injecting energy that ultimatelyexplode as flares might be independent of so-lar latitudes. The obvious inference is thatthe subsurface dynamics, either the magni-tude of large-scale flows in the convective en-velope or magnitude of subsurface rotationalshear layer that might play a dominant rolein bringing together raising flux tubes, ap-pears to be independent of solar latitude. Inaddition, from the Kodaikanal Observatorydata, it was also found that flares are far toofrequently associated with the occurrence ofabnormal rotation rates during the lifespanof a bipolar sunspot group than with the oc-currences of non-abnormal rotation rates.

(G. S. Suryanarayana, K. M. Hiremath, S.P. Bagare & M. Hegde*)

Study of sunspot whorls using Big BearSolar Observatory & Kodaikanal Ob-servatory data

Detailed studies of H-alpha chromosphericfeatures have been rather sparse, particularlysince the data are available on original pho-tographic plates/films at respective observa-tories. At the Kodaikanal Observatory, fulldisk spectroheliogram recording started in1912 and continued uninterrupted until 2005.At the Big Bear Solar Observatory, the fulldisk observations started in 1969 and havecontinued till date. The geographic locationsof these observatories allow mutually com-plementary observations during common pe-riods of interest. The total duration of over ahundred years or nine cycles of solar activityso far provides a unique data set. In the re-cent years, both the observatories have takenup digitization of these data. The BBSOdata have been archived as part of the GlobalH-alpha Network. At IIA, the digitizationis nearing completion. A detailed study ofthe sunspot associated super penumbral fib-ril structures was carried out using the aboveunique digitized data sets. Also, a feasibilitystudy was carried out at NJIT, during April-June 2013, using several sample cases and itwas shown that the two data sets are comple-mentary for both short and long term stud-ies of the chromosphere in H-alpha. This isparticularly important in the light of the pro-posed installation of 20 cm dedicated, narrowband and high cadence H-alpha telescope be-ing installed at Kodaikanal. A proposal hasbeen written for approval by NASA for col-laborative work in the area.

(S. P. Bagare, Heimin Wang* & Debi PrasadChoudhari*)


White light Active Region Monitor(WARM)

Top: Schematic of the dual channel imaging sys-tem. Bottom: Processed images in two visibleregimes

A full disk solar imaging telescope WARM(White light Active Region Monitor), hasbeen designed and developed in-house to fa-cilitate long-term data products to the so-lar community. A two-mirror coelostat feedsSun light to the WARM. An achromat withan effective aperture of 148 mm is used toimage the Sun. The f/24 beam producesthe Sun’s image of 33 mm in diameter. Anon-polarizing beamsplitter diverts the con-verging beam in to two independent chan-nels. In each channel secondary optical com-ponents are used to reimage the full disk onto two individual detectors. In the first chan-nel a PCO2000 CCD is used to image theSun in 430.5 nm with a pass band of 0.8nm. In the second channel ANDOR iXON

888 CCD is used with a red filter centeredat 630.25 nm. Both the CCDs are mountedon xyzq stages for focus, tilt and position ad-justments. WARM is equipped with an op-tical bread board on to which the dual chan-nel imaging system is set up. This set-upcan serve as a test bed for the four-channelbroad band imaging system planned for theproposed NLST and as a laboratory too forthe development of back-end instruments.

(Hemanth Pruthvi*, K. B. Ramesh, N. Vas-anthraju* & Technical Team)

Solar imaging with masked apertures

(A) Transfer functions generated for the en-closed masked aperture (placed over 40 cmcassegrain mount telescope). (B) 2D-plot of thetransfer functions for the same masked aperture.(C) r0 for one set of observations on is found tobe 6.8 cm as the intrinsic g-band contrast (0.192)equals to the rms contrast of deconvolved solarimage.

Generally masked apertures reduce incomingphotons enabling the high cadence observa-tions near to coherence time of the atmo-sphere. But the purpose of achieving high-resolution images wouldn’t be served unlessthe transfer function of such masked aper-tures are considered beforehand. We have


estimated the short (SE) and long expo-sure transfer functions (LE), Speckle trans-fer functions (speckle) and telescope transferfunctions (telescope) for the different simu-lated masked apertures along with the realmasked aperture used in the observationsperformed on 15 October, 2013 at Merak. Acomparative study of the transfer functionsof different simulated masked apertures un-der various observing conditions with that ofequivalent filled circular apertures indicatedthat Speckle transfer functions for maskedapertures are less sensitive to seeing vari-ations than that of filled apertures. Thespeckle transfer function for the masked aper-ture used in the observations is found to besame as short exposure transfer function. Wealso estimated Fried parameter (r0) from theobserved under-sampled data using modifiedparameter search method. The Fried param-eter (r0) for the observed under sampled datawith masked aperture is found to vary from6.2 to 6.8 cm during our observational pe-riod.

(N. Vasanthraju*, R. Sridharan* & K. B.Ramesh)

Association between angular momen-tum and impact due to catastrophicevents of the solar system objects

Diverse nature of magnetic field and rota-tional structures of the solar system bodies isan unsolved mystery. Although the so calleddynamo mechanism that needs Coriolis andLorenz forces of similar orders is supposed toexplain the Earth’s magnetic field structure,such a mechanism completely fails to explainlarge-scale magnetic field structures of someof slow rotating terrestrial planets like Mer-cury and, fast and slow rotating moons ofdifferent planets in the solar system. Con-sidering this deficiency in the dynamo mech-

anism, the author has proposed that, large-scale magnetic field structure of slow rotat-ing objects can also be maintained if suchobjects, during the early history of solar sys-tem formation, are bombarded by the exter-nal objects that might have altered the origi-nal internal dynamics and thermal structure.

Association between angular momentum (AM)of solar system objects (Mercury, Venus, Mars,Earth and its Moon, Moons of Mars, Jupiter,Saturn and Uranus) and the impact parameter(a measure of intensity of cratering) (IP) ob-tained from the craters data. Red continuousline is obtained from the linear least-square fit.

About 4500 craters data set of all the ter-restrial planets and their moons and, moonsof Jupiter, Saturn and Uranus that havecraters are considered and association be-tween measured impact parameter (measureof intensity of the impact) and angular mo-mentum is examined. It is found that so-lar system objects that have experienced avery high impact have low angular momen-tum and vice verse explaining diverse natureof rotational velocities of different solar sys-tem solid bodies.

( K. M. Hiremath)


Prototype spectropolarimeter develop-ment

India’s National Large Solar Telescope (NLST)of two meter aperture size is proposed to beset up in Ladakh region of Himalayas at aheight of around 4300 meters. A high res-olution spectrograph along with a polarime-ter is planned as one of the backend instru-ments for NLST. Prototype development ofthe NLST Spectro-Polarimeter (SP) is pro-posed to be designed and developed for us-age at the back focal plane of the Multi-Application Solar Telescope (MAST) recentlyinstalled at the Udaipur Solar Observatory.Design of the prototype SP has been dis-cussed in detail along with the scientific goals.The SP is designed to be operated in threewavelengths to observe photospheric and chro-mospheric layers of the solar atmosphere si-multaneously. Vector magnetic fields will becalculated in these layers. High resolutionof the designed SP will provide accurate es-timates of velocities. Highly resolved polar-ized line profiles will allow the user to ob-tain the height variation of vector magneticfields when used along with suitable inversioncodes.

(K. E. Rangarajan)

Comet ISON

In January 2013, the high-altitude balloongroup initiated observations of the cometISON in preparation for the November 2013launch of the UV spectrograph to observeit at the time of the perihelion in near UVwindow. The UV spectra was not obtained,however, in total, the group has observed thecomet in January, February, May, Septemberand October 2013, both in imaging and spec-troscopic modes using HCT and VBT tele-scope; providing 370-830 nm coverage. Theimages are being utilized as part of an inter-

national campaign observing the comet fromaround the globe. From that, one could de-termine the behavior of morphological evolu-tion as a function of time which is not possi-ble to obtain from a single observatory.

Comet C/2012 (ISON) 2013 October 01, R band300 sec exposure. The observations were per-formed in the Keystone mode of the HCT. Dis-tance to the comet is 2.151 AU, where 1AU =149597871km

The science that can be extracted includesthe rotational state of the nucleus, charac-terization of the nucleus activity, gas anddust properties in the coma, and tempo-ral behavior of the tail structure when thecomet is close to the sun. As comet ap-proaches the Sun, its spectra consists of re-flected sunlight from dust in the coma and,after crossing the ice line, the emission linesfrom coma species. The volatile composi-tion of cometary nuclei can be inferred frommeasurements of the spectral signatures ofgases forming the coma. Analysis of comet’scontinuum (caused by the reflected sunlightfrom dust particles in the coma) provides theknowledge about the nature of the comet’sdust. In addition, comet’s images were usedfor public outreach in the ‘Eyes in ISON’snation-wide campaign’.

(M. Safonova)


2.2 Stellar and Galactic

Astrophysics

Monitoring outburst of classical and re-current novae

The outburst of the classical and recurrentnovae are being monitored to study the tem-poral evolution of the physical conditions inthe outburst ejecta, and its interaction withthe circumstellar material. These studiesalso provide an understanding of the cen-tral binary system and the conditions leadingto the outburst. The classical novae NovaCephei 2013 and Nova Delphini 2013 wereobserved in the optical and NIR using the 2mHCT and in the radio using the GMRT. Highresolution spectra of Nova Delphini 2013 wasalso obtained with the VBT. The 2014 out-burst of the recurrent nova V745 Sco wasmonitored spectroscopically using the VBT.Photometric observations were made withthe 1.3m JCBT. The evolution of the lowfrequency radio flux was studied using theGMRT, and found to be non-thermal similarto RS Ophiuchi. The recurrent novae T CrB,RS Oph, CI Aql,U Sco and V3890 Sgr con-tinue to be monitored during their quiescencephase as a part of the spectroscopic monitor-ing programme to study the long term be-haviour of these systems.

(G. C. Anupama, U. S. Kamath, S. Srivas-tav, D. K. Ojha*, J. P. Ninan*, G. Selvaku-mar, V. Moorthy, N. G. Kantharia*, D. P.K. Banerjee* & N. M. Ashok* )

Multiwaveband observation of Gamma-rays sources

Since the detection of VHE gamma-rays fromMrk 501, its broad band emission of radi-ation was mostly modelled using one zoneemission scenario, which was quite effective

in explaining the observed broad band emis-sion to a large extent. But broad-band spec-tral and flux variability studies enabled bythe multiwavelength campaigns carried outduring the recent years have revealed rathercomplex behaviour of Mrk 501. The ob-served emission from Mrk 501 could be dueto a complex superposition of multiple emis-sion zones. Moreover new evidences of detec-tion of very hard intrinsic gamma-ray spectraobtained from Fermi-LAT observations havechallenged the theories about origin of VHEgamma-rays. Studies by the authors, basedon Fermi-LAT data indicate the existenceof two separate components in the spec-trum, one for low energy gamma-rays andthe other for high energy gamma-rays. Us-ing multiwaveband data from several groundand space based instruments, in addition toHAGAR data, the spectral energy distribu-tion of Mrk 501 is obtained for various fluxstates observed during 2011. In the presentwork, this observed broadband spectral en-ergy distribution is reproduced with a lep-tonic, multi-zone Synchrotron Self-Comptonmodel.

(A. Shukla*, V. Chitnis*, B. B. Singh*, B. S.Acharya*, G. C. Anupama, P. Bhattachar-jee*, R. J. Britto*, K. Mannheim*, T. P.Prabhu, L. Saha*, P. R. Vishwanath*)

Supernova SN 2012dn: A spectroscopicclone of SN 2006gz

A detailed optical and UV analysis of SN2012dn is carried out. In optical bands,it is marginally luminous (M t

Bextmax =−19.52± 0.15), however, in the Swift UVOTbands, it is about 1 to 2 magnitudes brighterthan normal type Ia supernovae and showsvery blue colours in the (uvw1 − v) and(U − B) bands. The photometric and spec-troscopic behaviour of SN 2012dn is differ-ent from those of normal and SN 1991T like


BV RI light curves of SN 2012dn compared withthose of other well studied type Ia supernovae.All the light curves have been shifted to matchwith their peak magnitudes and to the epoch ofB band maximum.

objects. With very strong secondary max-imum, the light curve in I band peaks af-ter maximum in B band, which is just op-posite to the observed trend for normal typeIa events. During late phase light curve de-cline of SN 2012dn is faster The contributionof UV bands to the bolometric flux is quitehigh (∼ 20%). The peak bolometric luminos-ity indicates that∼ 0.82M⊙ mass of 56Ni wassynthesized in the explosion. Pre-maximumspectra show clear evidence of C,sc ii 6580AA. The velocity evolution of C,sc ii is pe-culiar, it is lower than the velocity estimatedusing the Si,sc ii line. In the pre-maximumphase and close to maximum, to reproduceobserved shape of the spectra, the syntheticspectrum code sc syn++ needs significantlyhigher blackbody temperature than those re-quired for normal type Ia events. The photo-spheric velocity evolution and other spectralproperties are similar to those of the carbon-rich SN 2006gz.

(N. K. Chakradhari*, D. K. Sahu, S. Srivas-tav & G. C. Anupama)

Properties of newly formed dust grainsin the luminous Type IIn Supernova2010jl

Supernovae have been proposed to be themain production sites of dust grains. How-ever, nature and amount of dust produced byindividual supernova is poorly understood.A spectrum of Type IIn supernova 2010jl,covering optical through near-infrared, takenduring late phase reveals signatures of newlyformed dust. We derive the main populationof the dust species as carbon grains at a tem-perature of ∼ 1, 350 − 1, 450K and mass ofdust grains to be ∼ (7.5 − 8.5) × 10−4M⊙.We attribute the dust grains to have beenformed in a dense cooling shell due to strongSN-circumstellar media interaction.

(K. Maeda*, T. Nozawa*, D. K. Sahu, Y.Minowa*, K. Motohara*, I. Ueno*, G. Fo-latelli*, T. -S. Pyo*, Y. Kitagawa*, K. S.Kawabata*, G. C. Anupama, T. Kozasa*, T.J. Moriya*, M. Yamanaka*, K. Nomoto*,M. Bersten*, R, Quimby* & M. Iye*)

iPTF 13bvn: The first evidence of abinary progenitor for a Type Ib Super-nova

The optical observations of Type Ib super-nova iPTF 13bvn obtained with the HCTwere used to compute bolometric light curve.The hydrodynamical modelling of bolomet-ric light curve shows that the progenitor hada pre-SN mass of ∼ 3.5 M⊙. We proposean interacting binary system as the SN pro-genitor. The evolutionary calculations self-consistently explain the light-curve shape,the absence of hydrogen, and the pre-SN pho-tometry.


(M. Bersten*, Omar G. Benvenuto*, G. Fo-latelli*, K. Nomoto*, H. Kuncarayakti*, S.Srivastav, G. C. Anupama, R. Quimby* &D. K. Sahu)

Photometric and spectroscopic stud-ies of star-forming regions within Wolf-Rayet galaxies

Optical photometric and spectroscopic studyof a sample of Wolf-Rayet galaxies was car-ried out. Their morphologies, colours, star-formation rates (SFRs), metallicities, age ofstellar populations and oxygen abundancewere estimated by combining broad-band andnarrow-band photometry with low-resolutionoptical spectroscopy. Hα images were usedto identify star-forming regions within thesegalaxies and to derive SFR. Our Hα-basedSFR usually agrees with the SFR computedusing the far-infrared and the radio-continuumflux. The optical broad-band colours in com-bination with Starburst99 model were usedfor estimating the internal reddening and ageof the dominant underlying stellar popula-tion. For all the star forming regions theage of the most recent star-formation eventis found to be 3-6 Myr. Some galaxies showthe presence of an important old (400 - 1000Myr) stellar population indicating that boththe current intensity of the starbursts andthe star-formation activity have been ongo-ing for at least a few tens of millions of yearsin these objects.

(Chrisphin Karthick*, A. R. Lopez-Sanchez*,D. K. Sahu, B. B. Sanwal* & Shuchi Bisht*)

Multi-wavelength photometry of youngclusters

Young clusters provide a stellar system wherethe individual member stars have a range inage (of the order of the cluster age), a rangein mass with same initial composition. Study

of such a cluster gives insights into the ba-sic star formation processes, time and massdependent evolution of stars as a whole andfinally the dynamics which control the dissi-pation of material within the cluster as wellas the final kinematics within the system.Estimation of fundamental parameters suchas reddening, distance, age and membershipare necessary before probing the propertiesof individual cluster members. When theMS stars in the cluster are optically visible,stars in the pre-MS phase require a multi-wavelength analysis based on optical, NIRand MIR to estimate their properties andtrace the star formation history of the clus-ter. In this study we carried out opticalphotometry of 5 clusters (Be 59, NGC 1931,NGC 6604, NGC 7261 and NGC 7510) withan age range of 1-10Myr by using the Hi-malayan Chandra telescope (HCT) in combi-nation with NIR data from 2MASS and mid-IR data fromWISE. The youngest cluster Be59, with age ∼1Myr, hosts the highest frac-tion of YSOs. It is found that for Be 59,NGC 604 and NGC 7510 the star formationprocesses are continuous; while for NGC 1931and NGC 7261 the star formation is episodic.

(B. Bhavya, A. Subramaniam, & V. C. Kuri-akose*)

Properties of small-scale magnetism ofStellar Atmospheres - A study using3D magnetoconvection simulations

Using a magnetohydrodynamic simulation codeCO5BOLD we have obtained preliminary re-sults from simulations for the effective tem-perature ranging between 4000 K and 6500K with an initial vertical, homogeneous mag-netic field with a strength of 50 Gauss. Wefind that the field strength of the strongestmagnetic flux concentrations increases with


Bolometric intensity emerging vertically from asingle snapshot of each of the four simulationruns. The grey scale of each map ranges fromminimal to maximal intensity of each individualmap. The snapshots correspond to the modelswith Teff =4000 K (top left), Teff =5000 K (topright), Teff =5770 K (solar, bottom left), andTeff =6500 K (bottom right). Note that boxsizes increase with increasing effective temper-ature Teff in order to accommodate a similarnumber of granules. Side boundaries are peri-odic. The length of the bar in the top right ofeach frame is 10 times the surface pressure scaleheight.

decreasing effective temperature at the heightwhere the average Rosseland optical depth isone. Despite of this relation, at the samelevel, the field is less strong than the ther-mal equipartition value in the coolest modelbut assumes super-equipartition in the mod-els hotter than 5000 K. While the Wilsondepression of the strongest field concentra-tions is about one pressure scale height in thecoolest model, it is more than four times thepressure scale height in the hottest one. Wealso find that the relative contribution of thebright filigree to the bolometric luminosity is

most significant for the model with effectivetemperature 5000 K (0.56%) and least signif-icant for that with effective temperature 6500K (0.12%). This behaviour suggests that theeffect of the small-scale magnetic field on thephotometric variability is more significant forK dwarf stars than that for F type and M-type stars.

(S. P. Rajaguru, Oskar Steiner*, Rene Sal-hab* & Bernd Freytag* et al.)

On the relationship between masses ofsun-like G stars and their exoplanets

We continued the study of relationship be-tween G stars and their exoplanetary masses.In the previous study, with some constraintson the orbital parameters of exoplanets andby using ad-hoc law of mass loss, initialmasses of the host stars during the era of stel-lar system formation are computed and com-pared with the present exoplanetary masses.We found the inverse mass relationship be-tween the masses of host stars and their exo-planets. In the present study, with the samedata set, a reasonable mass loss correctionis applied for both the host stars and theirexoplanets. Results clearly support our pre-vious study that there is a universal inversemass relationship between the host stars andtheir respective exoplanetary masses. Fromthe empirical inverse mass relationship, ini-tial mass (∼ 1.4M⊙) of the Sun during solarsystem formation and present planetary mass(∼ 5 Jupiter mass) in the vicinity of sun areestimated. For existence of present low plan-etary mass (∼ 0.01 MJ , where MJ is massof Jupiter) in the vicinity of sun, it is con-jectured that estimated high planetary massprobably some part might have accreted onto the sun or some part might have beenblown off to the space due to stellar radiationduring initial stage of solar system formation


or part of this missing mass might have mi-grated outwards from the vicinity of the sun.

(K. M. Hiremath, Shashank Gurumath∗ & V.Ramasubramanian∗)

Role of rotation and polar cap currenton pulsar radio emission and polarisa-tion

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Simulated polarization profiles of pulsars: inten-sity linear L and circular V polarizations and thepolarization angle ψ are plotted as functions ofthe rotation phase.

Pulsar radio emission is believed to be emit-ted by the relativistic plasma acceleratedalong the rotating dipolar field lines. Theauthors have developed a most general rel-ativistic model for the polarization of co-herent curvature radiation by including thepulsar spin, polar cap current perturbationand modulation of radio emitting plasma.Based on the model the authors have simu-lated pulse profiles for the various combina-tion physical parameters that prevail in thepulsar magnetosphere. In the Figurethe au-thors have presented a couple of polarizationprofiles: I represents the intensity, L and Vthe linear and circular polarizations, and ψthe polarization angle swing, using magneticaxis inclination angle α = 10◦ and sight line

impact angle σ = ±5◦. The rotation inducedasymmetry in the curvature of source tra-jectory, which the sight line encounters, canbe asymmetric between the two sides (lead-ing and trailing) of the profile. Hence thepeak of intensity profile shifts to the leadingside while the inflection point of ψ to laterphase (marked by downward arrows). Theauthors propose that the effect of rotationand PC-current perturbation in the presenceof non-uniform source distribution (modula-tion) along with viewing geometry might beresponsible for the most of the observed di-verse behaviour of polarization properties ofpulsar radio emission. For the first time theyhave shown that the “symmetric”-type circu-lar polarization (see green curves in Figuresa and c) could be generated by the curvatureradiation when the perturbation and modu-lation are operative. The sign of V seems tocorrelated with the swing of ψ.

(D. Kumar & R. T. Gangadhara)

Chemical compositions of RV Tauri starsand related objects

We have undertaken a comprehensive abun-dance analysis for a sample of relatively un-explored RV Tauri and RV Tauri like stars tofurther their understanding of post-AsymptoticGiant Branch (post-AGB) evolution. Fromtheir study based on high resolution spectraand a grid of model atmospheres, they foundthe indications of mild s-processing for V820Cen and IRAS 06165+3158. On the otherhand, SU Gem and BT Lac exhibit the effectsof mild dust-gas winnowing. We have alsocompiled the existing abundance data on RVTauri objects and find that a large fractionof them are afflicted by dust-gas winnowingand aided by the present work, they find asmall group of two RV Tauri’s showing milds-process enhancement in our Galaxy. Withtwo out of three reported s-process enhanced


The agreement between synthesized and ob-served spectrum for V820 Cen for selected re-gions containing the lines of s-process elements.

objects belonging to RV Tauri spectroscopicclass C, these intrinsically metal-poor objectsappear to be promising candidates to analysethe possible s-processing in RV Tauri stars.

(S. Sumangala Rao & Sunetra Giridhar)

Identification of metal-poor stars usingthe artificial neural network

We have constructed a library of 167 medium-resolution stellar spectra (R 1200) coveringthe stellar temperature range of 4200 to 8000K, log g range of 0.5 to 5.0, and [Fe/H] rangeof -3.0 to + 0.3 dex. This empirical spec-tral library was used to train ANNs, yield-ing an accuracy of 0.3 dex in [Fe/H], 200 Kin temperature, and 0.3 dex in log g. Wefound that the independent calibrations ofnear-solar metallicity stars and metal-poorstars decreases the errors in Teff and log g bynearly a factor of two. We calculated Teff ,log g, and [Fe/H] on a consistent scale fora large number of field stars and candidatemetal-poor stars. We extended the appli-cation of this method to the calibration of

absolute magnitudes using nearby stars withwell-estimated parallaxes. A better calibra-tion accuracy for Mv could be obtained bytraining separate ANNs for cool, warm, andmetal-poor stars. The current accuracy ofMv calibration is ± 0.3 mag. A list of newlyidentified metal-poor stars is presented.

(S. Giridhar, A. Goswami, A. Kunder*, S.Muneer & G. Selvakumar)

Differential image analysis of Globularclusters NGC 7099, NGC 7492, NGC6333 and NGC 288

The finding chart for NGC 7492 constructedfrom V reference image.

We have made extended V and I time-seriesobservations of four globular clusters NGC7099, NGC 7492, NGC 6333 and NGC 288using difference image analysis to obtain high-precision light curves of variable stars whichenables us to search for new variable stars inthese clusters and refine the periods of knownvariables. We have estimated the cluster pa-rameters by performing a Fourier decompo-sition of the light curves of RR Lyrae starsfor which good period estimates were avail-able. We have estimate an age of 13.0 ±


1.0Gyr for NGC 7099 by fitting theoreticalisochrones to our colour-magnitude diagram(CMD). For NGC 7099 we find two new RRLyrae variables, and confirm two additionalRR Lyrae candidates from the literature. Wealso detect four other kind of variables, in-cluding an eclipsing blue straggler system,and an SX Phoenicis star. We find a clus-ter metallicity [Fe/H]ZW = -2.01 ± 0.04, adistance of 8.32 ± 0.20 kpc (using RR0 vari-ables) for NGC 7099. IN NGC 7492 we findthat RR Lyra variable V2 is undergoing pe-riod change; using P-L relation of SX Phestars a distance of 24.04 ± 0.20 kpc is es-timated while [Fe/H]ZW = -1.68 ± 0.04 isestimated for NGC 7492. Similarly, we find[Fe/H]ZW = -1.62 ± 0.04, a distance of 8.99± 0.20 kpc for NGC 288, [Fe/H]ZW = -1.70± 0.04, a distance of 8.04± 0.20 kpc for NGC6333.

(S. Giridhar)

On the binary helium star DY Cen-tauri: Chemical composition and evo-lutionary state

DY Cen has shown a steady fading of its vi-sual light by about 1 magnitude in the last40 years suggesting a secular increase in itseffective temperature. The authors have con-ducted non-LTE and LTE abundance analy-ses to determine the star’s effective tempera-ture, surface gravity, and chemical composi-tion using high-resolution spectra obtainedover two decades. The derived stellar pa-rameters for three epochs suggest that DYCen has evolved at a constant luminosity andhas become hotter by about 5000 K in 23years. The authors show that the derivedabundances remain unchanged for the threeepochs. The derived abundances of the keyelements, including F and Ne, are as ob-served for the extreme helium stars resultingfrom a merger of an He white dwarf with a

C-O white dwarf. Thus, DY Cen by chem-ical composition appears to be also a prod-uct of a merger of two white dwarfs. Thisappearance seems to be at odds with the re-cent suggestion that DY Cen is a single-linedspectroscopic binary.

(Gajendra Pandey, N. Kameswara Rao*, Si-mon C. Jeffery* & David L. Lambert*)

Discovery of relatively hydrogen-poorgiants in the Galactic globular clusterOmega Centauri

The results of our low-resolution spectro-scopic survey for identifying the hydrogen-deficient (H-deficient) stars in the red giantsample of the globular cluster Omega Cenare reported. Spectral analyses were car-ried out on the basis of the strengths of(0,0) MgH band and the Mgb triplet. Inour sample, four giants were identified withweak/absent MgH bands in their observedspectra, which is not as expected for theirwell determined stellar parameters. The Mgabundances for the program stars were deter-mined from subordinates lines of the MgHband to the blue of the Mgb triplet, usingthe spectral synthesis technique. The de-rived Mg abundances for the program starswere as expected for the red giants of OmegaCen (Norris & Da Costa 1995), except forthe four identified candidates. DeterminedMg abundances of these four candidates aremuch lower than that expected for the redgiants of Omega Cen, and are unacceptablebased on the strengths of the Mgb triplet intheir observed spectra. Hence, the plausiblereason for the weak/absent MgH bands inthe observed spectra of these stars is a rela-tively lower abundance of hydrogen in theiratmospheres. These giants may belong to the


group of helium enriched red giants of OmegaCen.

(B. P. Hema & Gajendra Pandey)

Abundance pattern of Hercules stream

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The abundance plots of Hercules stream (redcross) for representative α elements as [X/Fe]versus [Fe/H]. Black and brown circles repre-sent thick and thin disc stars respectively fromBensby et al. 2005.

Hercules stream is a prominent moving groupin solar neighbourhood, with a rotationallag of 50 km/s with respect to the LocalStandard of Rest. The authors have esti-mated abundances of 16 elements for 58 redgiant members of the Hercules stream cat-alogued by Famaey et al. 2005. Resultsshow that they are quite young and metalrich with a considerable range in age (170Myr to 4.2 Gyr) and metallicity (-0.17 dexto +0.43 dex). Our results suggest that themember stars of the Hercules stream are partof the thin disc component which is contraryto the results in the literature which suggestthat Hercules stream is a mixture of the thinand thick discs. Estimated abundances arepresented in which shows a trend very sim-ilar to that of thin disc. However, in thesuper-metallicity region it is difficult to dis-

entangle the thick and thin disc abundancetrends. From these results we argued thatthe stream is resultant of orbital perturba-tions within the thin disc rather than due tocluster disruption or migration of stars fromthe merging satellites.

(P. Ramya, B. E. Reddy & D. L. Lambert*)

AFGL 333 in perspective: Stellar con-tent, properties and star formation ac-tivity

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The Finding chart for NGC 7492 constructedfrom V reference image. Color composite im-age (red- 500 micron; green - 8.0 micron, blue- 2.16 micron) of the AFGL 333 complex withcandidate YSOs overplotted (red - Class I,green - Class II). The important sub-regions aremarked. The blue contours are the 850 micronemission map, which peaks around the molecu-lar ridge in the complex.

The W3 giant molecular cloud is one of themost massive molecular clouds in the Perseusarm at a distance of 2.0 kpc and is wellknown for its high mass star formation activ-ity. The AFGL 333 complex lies at the south-ern periphery of W3 and it contains several


kinds of sources including a bright rimmedcloud (BRC 5), a compact HII (CHII) regionassociated with a cluster and a prominentdense filamentary structure associated witha molecular ridge. Using multi-wavelengthdata sets (optical, NIR, MIR, FIR and Ra-dio), an extensive survey of this star formingcomplex has been undertaken with an aimto explore its hidden young stellar objects(YSOs) as well as to understand the struc-ture and formation history. We obtained over800 candidate YSOs (Class I and Class II)in the complex and their spatial distributionand clustering analysis identified new stellaraggregates across the region. The age anal-ysis of YSOs based on CMDs, circumstellardisk fraction and SEDs shows evidences formultiple evolutionary status for various sub-regions of the complex. The morphology ofthis complex especially the BRC 5 facing theW4 super bubble is strongly suggestive of alarge scale triggering due to its expansion.However, in a small scale, it is also suggestinga local triggering effect within the complex,generates secondary bursts of star formationeither by forming or collapsing clumps andfilaments (e.g. expansion of the CHII re-gion).

(Jessy Jose)

Chemical imprints of the first based onmetal poor stars from SDSS

The authors generated extensive syntheticgrids, for deriving automated abundances ofkey elements (C, N, Mg, Fe, Sr, and Ba) fromSDSS spectra. They have completed derivingcarbon abundances of 500,000 stars and Baabundances for a subset of 30,000 stars withhigh S/N from SDSS-DR9 data release. Bar-ium abundances along with carbon is used todifferentiate the contribution of carbon fromAGB and massive stars. Carbon rich stars

with Ba enhancements dominate the metalrich end below [Fe/H] < -3.0 and their car-bon abundances show a plateau with respectto their metallicity indicating a AGB contri-bution due 3rd dredge-up. The CEMP-nostars dominate the metal poor end. Similarto the CEMP-s star plateau, there is also apossibility to find plateau in the CEMP-nocarbon abundances. A possible plateau mayindicate, pre-pollution of carbon due to Firststars.

(T. Sivarani, Susmitha Rani & *Lee et al.)

Origin of r-process in Carbon enhancedmetal poor stars

One of the outstanding problem in the studyof Carbon enhanced metal poor stars is that,about 60% of them have s- process rich com-position along with high Eu enhancements.Since Eu mainly produced by r-process dueto massive stars, the formation scenarios andthe relative abundances of r+s versus s-onlyrich carbon stars seem to be puzzling. Theauthors have derived abundances for 39 ele-ments, including 19 n-capture elements for anew r+s star HE 1405-0822, to study originof r-process. They could not reproduce ther- process pattern (including Eu, Gd, Tb, Dyand Er) in HE1405-0822 with a superposi-tion of scaled solar r-process pattern (assum-ing the main r-process pattern is universal).This means that the origin of r-process ele-ments are more complicated than what is un-derstand now. Similar study of more numberof CEMP-s and CEMP-r+s stars will throwsome light on the origin of r-process , i.e. aspecial “s/r” neutron-capture process whichshould be a single process with features in-between or a superposition of the s- and r-process, or a probably unlikely scenario, astable triple stellar system.

(W. Y. Cui*, T. Sivarani & N. Christlieb*)


Extreme Ultra-violet radiation constrainsthe habitable zone of low luminositystars

Upper limit on the Extreme Ultra-violet lumi-nosity of M-dwarf stars of different spectral classwhich determines the habitability of planets.

The conventional “Circumstellar HabitableZone” is defined as a region of a stellar sys-tem at which the temperature of an objectshould be appropriate for water to exist inliquid state. A rocky planet orbiting in thisregion is called a “Habitable Planet”. Re-cently, a large number of exoplanets havebeen discovered around M-type of stars andmany of them are located in the habitablezone of such stars. This implies the existenceof a large number of habitable planets in ourgalaxy. However, the conventional definitionof circumstellar habitable zone does not con-sider the effect of X rays and Extreme Ultra-violate (EUV) rays from the star. Since M-type of stars are faint and have low effec-tive temperature, the habitable zone of thesestars are very close to the stars and hencethe planets are exposed to intense X-raysand EUV which not only ionize atoms and

molecules but also strip out light elementsand volatiles. Considering energy-limited hy-drodynamical mass loss with an escape ratethat causes oxygen to escape along with hy-drogen, I present an upper limit for the ratiobetween the EUV and the bolometric lumi-nosities of stars which constrains the hab-itability of planets around them. Applica-tion of the limit to planet-hosting stars withknown EUV luminosities implies that manyM-type of stars should not have habitableplanets around them.

(Sujan Sengupta)

Characterizing the UV H-R Diagramfor UVIT filter set

UV Color-Magnitude Diagrams for UVIT fil-ter set are shown for stars of four metallic-ity groups (as labelled on each panel). Dif-ferent spectral classes are represented by dif-ferent symbols in following order: O-type(+),B-type(*), A-type(Diagonal), F-type(Triangle),G-type(square), K-type(x) and M-type(dot).

The authors have undertaken a study tocharacterize stellar properties spanning the


H-R diagram as observed with this filter set.The stellar groups under investigation spanall spectral types and luminosity classes aswell as metallicity range of -2.5 < [Fe/H] <+0.5. The observed, flux-calibrated, Spec-tral Energy Distributions (SEDs) of starsspanning spectral classes and metallicitiesfrom a wide variety of spectral atlases andcatalogues of past and current UV missionseg. TD1,IUE, HST, have been compiled.The UV Color-Magnitude Diagrams (CMDs)have been generated from the expected mag-nitudes computed for UVIT. An example ofthe CMD is shown in the figure. It is demon-strated that (i) UVIT filter system offers alarge color spreads which otherwise can onlybe achieved by combining data from differ-ent missions; (ii) Using certain combinationsof filters we are able to segregate differentclasses of objects better than with groundbased data alone. The calibration of theUVIT system and a detailed analysis of theUV color distribution of stellar groups areunder progress.

(S.G. Bhargavi & Ashok Pati)

Magnetic fields in cometary globules -IV LBN 437

R-band polarimetry of a cometary globule,LBN 437 is carried out in order to studythe magnetic field geometry of the cloud.The magnetic field geometry of LBN 437 isfound to follow the curved shape of the glob-ule head. This could be due to the dragthat the magnetic field lines could have ex-perienced because of the ionizing radiationfrom the same exciting source that causedthe cometary shape of the globule. The ori-entation of the outflow from the Herbig A4estar, LkHα 233 (V375 Lac), located at thehead of LBN 437, is found to be parallel toboth the initial ambient magnetic field andthe Galactic plane.

(A. Soam*, G. Maheswar*, H. C., Bhatt, C.W., Lee* & A. N. Ramaprakash*)

A study of the starless cloud LDN 1570

The magnetic field geometry and the prop-erties of the dust in the starless cloud LDN1570 have been studied using multi-wavelengthoptical polarimetry and photometry. Themagnetic field lines are found to be paral-lel to the cloud structures seen in the 250micron images of LDN 1570. Based on themagnetic field geometry, the cloud structure,and the complex velocity structure, the au-thors conclude that LDN 1570 is in the pro-cess of formation due to the converging flowof material mediated by the magnetic fieldlines. A structure function analysis showsthat in the LDN 1570 cloud region the largescale magnetic fields are stronger than theturbulent component of the magnetic fields.The estimated strength of the magnetic fieldsuggests that the LDN 1570 region is subcrit-ical, and hence could be strongly supportedby the magnetic field lines. The distance tothe cloud is estimated to be about 390 pc.The dust grains in the cloud, as indicatedby the values of λmax and RV , are found tobe larger than the average interstellar dustgrains.

(C. Eswaraiah*, G. Maheswar*, A. K. Pandey*,J. Jose, A. N. Ramaprakash* & H. C. Bhatt)

Faint stellar sequences for ground-basedphotometry

The proper photometric calibration of faintobjects requires standard stars with knownflux at similar levels of faintness. Thoughthere are faint stellar standards that are usedfor calibration, often the flux is not known


in all filter bands, particularly the ’U’ and’I’ bands. We have started a program ofphotometric imaging in the U,B,V,R,I bandsof faint standard fields as part of the per-formance testing of the new 1.3m JCBT atVBO. These calibrated fields will be impor-tant not only for ground-based imaging butwill also bridge the gap in the U-band be-tween the optical and the ultraviolet regionto be observed with the Ultra-Violet ImagingTelescope.

(A. K. Pati)

Generation of Infrared Guide Star Cat-alogue for TMT Observations

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For the probable stellar sources (identified us-ing the extended star/galaxy criteria) in testfield, T2, the difference between the observedand computed magnitudes are plotted againstthe observed JV ega magnitude. The left-upper,left-lower and right-lower panels show the dif-ference when black body model, Nextgen stel-lar atmospheric model and Kurucz stellar atmo-spheric model was used to compute.

The TMT IRGSC is a star catalogue to be

prepared which should consist of sources withJ magnitudes as faint as 22 mag coveringthe TMT observable sky from +89 to -45degrees declination. The TMT IRGSC willbe a critical resource for TMT operationsthat enables efficient planning and observ-ing fulfilling a role similar to that of GuideStar Catalog I and II of the HST. No cata-log currently exists with objects this faint inIR and it is highly essential to compute theexpected NIR magnitudes from optical mag-nitudes. During the Phase I a methodologybased on Kurucz stellar atmospheric modelwas developed to compute the JHKs mag-nitudes of stellar sources from their opticalmagnitudes (gri). The methodology was ap-plied in three test fields in the CFHT LegacySurvey fields and was found to be satisfac-tory. In the Phase II of the TMT IRGSC,the fine tuning of the methodology to sat-isfy the source density criteria of NFIRAOSby interpolating the stellar models and theoptimization of the star/galaxy classificationare successfully completed in the first part ofthe Phase II. The feasibility study to use thePAN STARRS data for the final productionof TMT IRGSC is also completed

(S. Subramanian)

2.3 Extragalactic Astron-

omy and Cosmology

Gamma-ray loud Narrow line Seyfert 1galaxies

The extragalactic gamma-ray sky as revealedby the energetic gamma ray experiment tele-scope(EGRET) on board the Compton gamma-ray observatory(CGRO) and by the largearea telescope(LAT) on board Fermi is dom-inated by the blazar class of active galac-tic nuclei (AGN). Among the extragalacticsources, apart from blazars, Fermi has also


Spectral energy distributions of the NLSy1galaxies PKS 1502+036 and PKS 2004-447.Here simultaneous data points are red incolour namely, Fermi-LAT(filled squares), Swift-XRT(filled diamonds) and Swift-UVOT(filledtriangles). Archival data points are shown ingreen colour. The solid blue line gives thesum of all the modelled radiative components(BB: black body, Syn: Synchrotron, SSC: Syn-chrotron.

detected gamma-ray emission from five nar-row line Seyfert 1 (NLSy1) galaxies. NLSy1galaxies have narrow balmer emission lines(FWHM(Hbeta) < 2000 km/sec), weak OIII and strong optical FeII lines compared tobroad line Seyfert 1 galaxies. Their peculiarobservational characteristics are attributedto them having low mass black holes (106- 108 M⊙) at their centers. Many of theobserved characteristics of a minor popula-tion(7%) of NLSy1 galaxies sources are in-dicative of the presence of relativistic jets inthem and the detection of gamma-ray emis-sion in five of them has confirmed their pres-ence. A systematic study was performedon two sources PKS 1502+036 and PKS2004-447 using optical, X-ray and gamma-ray data from Swift and Fermi (i) to find thesimilarities and/or differences of these twosources with respect to the blazar class ofAGN and (ii) to see if they fit into the tra-ditional “blazar sequence”. It is found thatthe broad-band spectral energy distributionof these sources resemble more to the flatspectrum quasars than to the BL Lac class ofAGN and they fit into the traditional blazarsequence.

(Vaidehi S. Paliya, C. S. Stalin, Amit Shukla& Sunder Sahayanathan)

Monitoring of gravitationally lensedquasars

Combined (210 image frames for a total ex-posure of 21 hours) R-band image centred onthe doubly imaged gravitationally lensed quasarSDSS J1001+5027. The two lensing galaxies G1and G2 are indicated in the zoomed image.

Studies of gravitationally lensed quasars canhave both cosmological and astrophysical ap-plications. One of the cosmological appli-cations is to get an accurate estimate ofthe Hubble Constant H0. On the astro-physical side, studies of micro-lensing sig-natures on the lensed quasar light-curveswill enable to determine the spatial struc-ture of the accretion disks of the lensedquasars. Many efforts have been spent overthe years to determine H0, but its value isstill poorly constrained. One of the meth-ods to estimate H0 is the time delay method.Apart from accurate modelling of the lens-ing galaxy(ies) this method requires precisemeasurements of the time delay(s) betweenimages of multiply imaged quasars. This re-quires (a) long term monitoring observationswith good time resolution and high S/N and(b) good time delay estimation methods. Aset of 6 quasars is being monitored using the


2m HCT as part of the international COSmo-logical MOnitoring of GRAvItational Lenses(COSMOGRAIL) collaboration. Towardsthis program, a robust time delay estimationprocedure called the “Difference SmoothingTechnique” has been developed at IIA. Thismethod also takes into account the unwantedmicro-lensing signals present in the quasarlight curves. Using this new method, in con-junction with other techniques we find a timedelay of 119.3 ± 3.3 days for the doubly im-aged quasar SDSS J1001+5027 using obser-vations that span more than six years be-tween March 2005 and July 2011. The ob-served field and the light curves are shown in

(S. Rathna Kumar*,C. S. Stalin, F. Courbin*,T. P. Prabhu & G. Meylan*)

Optical variability of Active GalacticNuclei

R-band light curves of images A and B in thelensed quasar SDSS J1001+5027 from data ac-quired during March 2005 to July 2011.

Intra-night optical variability of different classes of Active Galactic Nuclei(AGN) are knownto show flux variations over the entire elec-tromagnetic spectrum over a range of timescales. Intra-night optical variability (INOV)refers to optical flux variations on minuteto hour time scales with amplitudes rang-ing from few hundredths to few tenths ofa magnitude. Studies of this kind are ex-tremely important as they help in probing

the innermost regions of AGN which is be-yond the reach of any imaging techniquesavailable today. Earlier studies based onhundreds of nights of monitoring data im-ply that blazars show large amplitude INOVcompared to radio-quiet quasars. We havecarried out a systematic analysis of the theincidence of INOV on six classes of AGNnamely radio-quiet quasars(RQQs), radio-intermediate quasars(RIQs),lobe-dominatedquasars(LDQs),low opitcal polarization coredominated quasars(LPCDQs), high opticalpolarization core dominated quasars(HPCDQs)and blazars detected in the TeV band(TeVblazars). For this we have used a sample of 77AGN, observed on a total of 262 nights using1-2m class optical telescopes located in India.We find the INOV duty cycle for these classesas:10 per cent for RQQs using 68 nights ofdata, 18 per cent for RIQs using 31 nightsof data, 5 per cent for LDQs using 35 nightsof data, 17 per cent for LPCDQs using 43nights of data, 43 per cent for HPCDQs us-ing 31 nights of data and 45 per cent for TeVblazars using 54 nights of data.

(A. Goyal, Gopal-Krishna, P. J. Wiita, C.S. Stalin & R. Sagar)

Red Giants in Small Magellanic Cloud.I. Disk and tidal stream kinematics

One of the principle goals of contemporaryastrophysics is to develop a more completeunderstanding of galaxy formation and evo-lution. In this context, the authors presentresults from the most extensive radial ve-locity survey of intermediate-age field starsin the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC) todate. Their analysis of a sample of 3065sources, predominantly from the red-giantbranch population, within a region of skyof approximately 37.5 square degrees, cen-tred on the Small Magellanic Cloud, has


Histogram of the radial velocity estimate of 3065SMC RGB stars.

unearthed a velocity gradient in the restframe of the SMC that is similar in position-angle with that observed in the young, mas-sive stellar population. The authors asso-ciate a kinematical structure towards the farnorth-west of our survey area with the tidal“conuter-bridge” tail. Their results reinforcethe notion that the intermediate-age stellarpopulation of the SMC is subject to substan-tial stripping by external forces.

(S. Annapurni, P. D. Dobbie*, A. A. Cole*& S. Keller*)

Red Giants in the Small MagellanicCloud.II.Metallicity gradient and age-metallicity relation

The authors present results from the largestCaII triplet line metallicity study of SmallMagellanic Cloud (SMC) field red giant starsto date, involving 3037 objects spread acrossapproximately 37.5 deg2, centred on this galaxy.The authors find a median metallicity of[Fe/H]=-0.99±0.01, with clear evidence foran abundance gradient of -0.075±0.011 dex/degree over the inner 5 degrees. They in-terpret the abundance gradient to be the re-sult of an increasing fraction of young starswith decreasing galactocentric radius, cou-

pled with a uniform global age-metallicity re-lation. The authors also demonstrate thatthe age-metallicity relation for an intermedi-ate age population located 10 kpc in frontof the NE of the Cloud is indistinguishablefrom that of the main body of the galaxy,supporting a prior conjecture that this is astellar analogue of the Magellanic Bridge.The metal poor and metal rich quartilesof our RGB star sample (with complemen-tary optical photometry from the MagellanicClouds Photometric Survey) are predomi-nantly older and younger than approximately6Gyr, respectively. Consequently, the au-thors draw a link between a kinematical sig-nature, tentatively associated by them with adisk-like structure, and the upsurges in stel-lar genesis imprinted on the star formationhistory of the central regions of the SMC.The authors conclude that the increase in thestar formation rate around 5-6 Gyr ago wasmost likely triggered by an interaction be-tween the SMC and LMC.

(S. Annapurni, P. D. Dobbie*, A. A. Cole*& S. Keller*)

Disk of the Small Magellanic Cloud astraced by Cepheids

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The color bars in all the panels represent the values of deviation in kpc from the best fit plane to the SMC disk.

The sample which show absolute deviations larger than 5 kpc are considered as real deviations from the plane which impliesthat the sample with deviations in the range −5 to +5 kpc are on the plane.

The closer sample are those which show deviation larger than 5 kpc and the farther sample are those which show deviation less than −5 kpc.

Closer sample Farther sample

Combined sample of Cepheids on the plane and the outliers

The two dimensional plot of deviation is shown.The details of all the panels are given in the plotitself.


The structure and evolution of disk of theSmall Magellanic Cloud (SMC) are traced bythe study of V and I band photometric dataof Cepheids from OGLE III catalog. The ori-entation measurements and the star forma-tion history are estimated from the study. Abreak in the PL relations of both the funda-mental mode and first over tone Cepheids atP 2.95 days and P 1 day respectively areobserved. A reddening map of the SMC diskis also presented. The orientation correcteddepth/thickness of the SMC disk is found tobe 2.32 pm 0.5 kpc. The scale height is esti-mated to be 1.08 pm 0.2 kpc. From the de-rived ages of the Cepheids, two peaks of en-hanced star formation are identified at 100-140 Myr and 200-240 Myr which coincideswith the suggested epoch (100- 300 Myr) ofrecent interaction of the SMC with the LargeMagellanic Cloud. The radial variation ofthe disk parameters mildly indicate struc-tures/disturbances in the inner SMC (0.5 <r < 1.75 degree). Some of the Cepheidsfound in front of the fitted plane in the east-ern regions are possibly the youngest tidallystripped counterpart of the H I gas of theMagellanic Bridge. The Cepheids behind thefitted plane are likely the population in theCounter Bridge predicted in the recent nu-merical simulations.

(S. Subramanian & A. Subramaniam)

Investigating AGN activity and blackhole masses in Low Surface Brightnessgalaxies

The aim of the work is to understand theAGN activity in LSB galaxies and to es-timate the mass of the black hole in theSeyfert I type galaxies. Hence to verify theM-sigma relation of LSB galaxies. From asample of1200 LSB galaxies in various cat-alogs, we retrieved SDSS spectra for 650galaxies. From the SDSS provided emission

line fluxes, the BPT diagram is constructedand the spectra of the 115 galaxies which areclassified as Seyferts and LINERs are furtheranalysed.

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MBH -sigma plot for the LSB galaxies. Blackpoints represent the MBH and velocity disper-sion of our sample galaxies. The blue pointsrepresent the galaxies in the study by Ramya etal.(2011). The solid line is the MBH -sigma rela-tion taken from Ferrarese & Merritt (2000), thedashed line is from Tremaine et al. (2002).

From the spectra we deconvolved the con-tributions from underlying dominant stellarpopulation to get the emission lines. Dur-ing this process the stellar velocity dispersionare also estimated. The emission lines are fit-ted with Gaussian profiles to get the accuratefluxes. The black hole masses of the samplegalaxies which showed broad Hα componentare estimated from the broad Hα luminosityand FWHM. Then the M -sigma relation ofLSB galaxies are verified. We find the LSBgalaxies are deviated from the M-sigma rela-tion seen for normal galaxies.

(S. Subramanian, M. Das, S. Ramya, K.George, T. Sivarani & T. P. Prabhu)


The neutral atomic Hydrogen (HI) kine-matics of the Large Magellanic Cloud(LMC)

The HI velocity map of the LMC. The locationsof suggested gas outflows (a1, a2, a3) and accre-tion (b, c, d) are marked.

The neutral atomic Hydrogen (HI) kinemat-ics of the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) isrevisited in the light of two new proper mo-tion estimates. The authors have analysedthe intensity weighted HI velocity maps ofATCA/Parkes and GASS data sets and cor-rected the line of sight velocity field for thesystemic, transverse, precession and nutationmotions of the disk and estimated the kine-matic parameters. The value of Position An-gle (PA) of kinematic major axis estimatedis found to be similar to the recent estimateof the PA using stellar tracers. The effect ofprecession and nutation in the estimation ofPA is found to be significant. Most of theHI gas in the LMC is found to be locatedin the disk. 12.1% of the data points weredetected as kinematic outliers. The authorshave identified the well known Arms E, S, W,B and a new stream, Outer Arm, as part ofvarious outlier components. The GASS dataanalysis brings out the velocity details of the

Magellanic Bridge (MB) and its connectionto the LMC disk. It is suggested that ArmB could be an infall feature, originating fromthe inner MB, while Arm E could be an out-flow feature. The authors suggest possibleoutflows from both the LMC and the MB,which could be due to ram pressure. The ve-locity pattern observed in the MB suggeststhat it is being sheared. The authors sug-gest that the various outliers identified in thisstudy are caused by a combination of hydro-dynamical and tidal effects.

(G. Indu)

Blue early-type galaxies

A deep understanding of the origin and na-ture of underlying stellar content of unusualblue early-type galaxies (ETGs) is crucial inorder to fully comprehend the processes in hi-erarchical galaxy formation. Blue ETG couldbe a triggered star formation phase of a pas-sively evolving ETG due to the sudden avail-ability of cold gas from tidal interactions orthe end product of a gas rich merger. In or-der to understand the underlying nature ofthese unusual systems, we carried out a de-tailed structural analysis of a sub sample (55)of purely star forming blue ETGs classifiedbased on their location on the line diagnosticdiagrams. Majority of the star forming blueETGs show tidal tails, ripples and/or closeproximity to neighbouring galaxies. Theseare strong evidences for ongoing or recent in-teractions between galaxies which could havetriggered the star formation responsible forthe blue colors. Blue ETGs could be a tran-sient phase for an otherwise passively evolv-ing red ETG. We had studied six extremecases with close companions of similar red-shift, among which two are clearly show-ing ongoing interactions potentially trigger-ing the star formation in these galaxies. One


galaxy show a jet feature which could be dueto the complete tidal disruption of the com-panion galaxy. This is the first time a blueETG is observed with ongoing tidal inter-actions supporting the claim that the bluecolor is due to triggered star formation fromthese interactions. Tidal interactions couldplay a major role in the observed increase ofstellar mass in early-type galaxies over thepast eight billion years. We plan to extendthis study in ultraviolet, probing the ongoingstar formation and in radio, investigating themolecular gas responsible for star formationin blue ETGs.

(K. George)

X-ray variability and the inner regionin AGN

The authors present theoretical models of X-ray variability attributable to orbital signa-tures from an accretion disk including emis-sion region size, quasi-periodic oscillations(QPOs) and its quality factor Q, and theemergence of a break frequency in the powerspectral density (PSD) shape. They haveconducted a time series analysis on X-raylight curves (0.3 keV to 10 keV) of a sam-ple of AGN. A statistically significant bendfrequency is inferred in 9 of 58 light curves(16%) from 3 AGN for which, the break time-scale is consistent with reported BH spin butnot with the reported BH mass. Upper limitsof 2.85×107M⊙ in NGC 4051, 8.02×107M⊙

in MRK 766 and 4.68×107M⊙ in MCG-6-30-15 are inferred for maximally spinning BHs.For REJ 1034+396, where a QPO at 3733s was reported, we obtain an emission re-gion size of (6-6.5)M and a BH spin ≤ 0.08.The relativistic inner region of a thin disk,dominated by radiation pressure and electronscattering is likely to host the orbital fea-tures as simulated Q ranges from 6.3× 10−2

- 4.25× 106, containing the observed Q. The

derived value of Q ∼ 32 for REJ 1034+396therefore suggests that the AGN hosts a thindisk.

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Contours of the break time-scale TB = TB(r, a)plotted for the NLSy1 galaxy NGC 4051 (obs.I.D.s 0157560101, 0606320101, 0606320201 and0606321601). Three constraint bands are plot-ted in the figure. The first is from the black holemass of 1.90+0.78

−0.78 × 106M⊙, plotted as a greencoloured vertical band. The second is from theblack hole spin≥ 0.30, plotted as a blue colouredhorizontal band. The third is from the contoursof TB which is inferred from the current analy-sis to be 1820 s lying within a 68 % confidenceinterval from 1585 s and 2089 s, plotted as thecontour bands. Only two of the constraint bandsintersect (spin and TB). An upper limit on theblack hole mass of 2.85×107M⊙ can be inferredfrom the current analysis.

(P. Mohan & A. Mangalam)

Models of jet variability in AGN

The authors present a general relativistic(GR) model of jet variability in active galac-tic nuclei from a helical bulk flow along a fun-nel shaped magnetic surface anchored to the


Helical trajectory of an emitting test particle inSchwarzschild geometry, constrained along ro-tating magnetic field lines with footpoints ona Keplerian disk (at cylindrical radius o) andasymptotically bound by a cylinder of radius f

at large z.

accretion disk close to the black hole Theycompare this model to a special relativistic(SR) and a GR cone model. There is anincreased amplitude (∼ 13.45 %); beamedportion and a systematic phase shift whichdiffer from the SR model in the light curve.There is an increasing phase shift and a max-imum amplitude increase (∼ 1.6 %) com-pared to the GR cone model. The resultsstrongly suggest the use of realistic magneticsurface geometries and a GR framework todescribe effects on emission from orbital fea-tures in the jet. Simulated light curves (LCs)for the funnel model include Doppler andgravitational shifts, aberration, light bend-ing and time delay. These LCs are used tostudy quasi-periodic oscillations (QPOs) and

the power spectral density (PSD) shape. Apower law shaped PSD with a slope of -1to -2.5 and QPOs with timescales rangingfrom 0.11 to 4.5 days are inferred for blackhole mass M• = (0.1 - 5) ×108M⊙ and bulkflow Lorentz factors γjet = 2 - 10. The fun-nel model is applicable to radio, optical andX-ray emission from a wide class of jettedsources including actively accreting AGN, X-ray binaries and other compact sources suchas neutron stars.

(P. Mohan & A. Mangalam)

Parametric models of the periodogram

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Binned periodogram for the X-ray light curve ofREJ 1034+396: fit portion is in blue and whitenoise region is in red. The best fit is the powerlaw with Lorentzian QPO model peaked at 3733s and the residue ∆χ =(data-model)/σ is shownbelow it.

The maximum likelihood estimator is usedto determine fit parameters for various para-metric models of the Fourier periodogramfollowed by the selection of the best fit modelamongst competing models using the Akaikeinformation criteria. This analysis, when ap-plied to light curves of active galactic nucleican be used to infer the presence of quasi-periodicity and break or knee frequencies.


The extracted information can be used toplace constraints on the mass, spin and otherproperties of the putative central black holeand the region surrounding it through theo-retical models involving disk and jet physics.The analysis is used to infer that power lawwith a Lorentian QPO model is the best fitto describe the power spectral density of theX-ray light curve of the narrow line Seyfert 1galaxy, REJ 1034+396 with a QPO peakedat 3733 s.

(P. Mohan, A. Mangalam & S. Chattopad-hyay)

VLBI imaging of the double peakedemission line AGN KISSR1494

A superposition of the 1.6 GHz VLBI contourimages of KISSR1494 made using pure natu-ral weighting (in grey-scale) and pure uniformweighting (in magenta). The contours are inpercentage of the peak intensity and increase insteps of root 2: the lowest contour levels are ±-32% for both the images, and the peak intensi-ties are 3.7E-4 Jy/beam for the grey-scale and6.7E-4 Jy/beam for the magenta image. Theconvolved beam is of size 7x7 mas.

The authors have carried out dual-frequency

phase-referenced VLBI observations of theSeyfert galaxy KISSR1494, which exhibitsdouble peaked emission lines in its SDSSspectrum. They have detected a single slightlyresolved radio component at 1.6 GHz (seeFigure), but not at 5 GHz implying a spec-tral index steeper than -1.5±-0.5. The highbrightness temperature of the radio compo-nent ( 1.4E+7 K) and the steep radio spec-trum support a nonthermal synchrotron ori-gin. Following the black hole mass-stellar ve-locity dispersion relation, they estimate theblack hole mass in KISSR1494 to be 1.0E+8M⊙, accreting at an Eddington rate of 0.002.The lack of double radio core or a core-jet structure is inconsistent with the binaryblack hole scenario or a powerful relativis-tic bipolar outflow as explanations for thedouble emission line peaks. The radio dataare consistent with either the radio emissioncoming from the parsec-scale base of a syn-chrotron wind originating in the magnetisedcorona above the accretion disk, or comingfrom the inner ionised edge of the accretiondisk or torus. In the former case, the NLRclouds may form a part of the broad outflow,while in the latter case, the NLR clouds mayform a part of an extended disk beyond thetorus. While with the present data, it is notpossible to clearly distinguish between thesetwo scenarios, there appears to be greater cir-cumstantial evidence supporting the broadnon-thermal accretion-disk coronal wind pic-ture in KISSR1494.

(P. Kharb)

A helicity constrained model of galac-tic dynamo

Magnetic fields correlated on kiloparsec scalesare observed in disc galaxies. Their origincould be due to amplification of small scaleseed fields by a turbulent dynamo. As afirst step, the authors analytically build a


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galactic disk dynamo model while makingthe usual assumptions of shear and the al-pha effect. They use the general toroidal-poloidal representation to calculate the abso-lute relative helicity in cylindrical geometry.The authors find quadrupolar solutions thatare matched to different models of force-freecorona. A limit cycle approach for the sat-uration of a dynamo (including a force-freecorona) through an analytic study of the timedependent solutions of the dynamo equationsis addressed. The authors incorporate thealpha-quenching equation with strength ofthe field calculated from the time depen-dent solutions. The flux transport termsare incorporated in the model through a dy-namic evolution of the twist in the coronalfield. This is used to estimate the mean fieldstrength of the dynamo generated field.

(A. Prasad & A. Mangalam)

Self-consistent model of the evolutionof black hole mass and spin

A theoretical model has been constructedthat takes into account the mass and spinaccreted by black hole and the angular mo-mentum torque due to an electro-dynamicaljet. The spin evolution is calculated with andwithout accretion; if the accretion stops the

jet power indicates an increase before a grad-ual decline if the initial spin, a >

√3/2, as a

result of the hole’s increasing size. This natu-rally has implications for the evolution of thejet. Specific analytic forms have been calcu-lated for the case of Bondi accretion and thethin disk. An important issue is the maxi-mum spin a that can be achieved in disk ac-cretion process using heuristic forms of an-gular momentum and accretion rates avail-able from MHD simulations. Preliminary re-sults indicate that the black hole achieves themaximum value when there is no jet. It isplanned to compare this with fully relativis-tic MHD simulations.

(A. Mangalam )

Stellar disruption by SMBHs and itsobservational implications

It has been well established by observationsthat Supermassive Black Holes (SMBHs) of106−108M⊙ capture stellar debris from tidallydisrupted stars that result in X-Ray and UVflashes. The star-star interaction changesthe angular momentum of some stars into aloss cone for which L ≤ Llc (where Llc isthe angular momentum of the loss cone) andare captured by the black hole. These cap-tured stars are tidally disrupted at the ra-dius Rt ≈ (M•/M⋆)

1/3R⋆ where black hole’stidal gravity exceed the stars self gravity.The mass fall back rate (M) of the debrisis roughly M ∝ t−5/3. In general, the debriscircularizes to form an accretion disk due tostream-stream collision and relativistic pre-cession of the debris orbits. We simulatedthe light curve profiles in different spectralbands with an approximate gas dynamicalmodel to make theoretical predictions for therate of detections of such events by variousmissions performing in either all sky survey(ASS) mode or deep imaging survey (DIS)


mode.

(T. Mageshwaran & A. Mangalam)

UVIT survey of nearby Galaxies

A survey of nearby galaxies has been a partof the original proposal for the Ultra-VioletImaging Telescope.The UVIT will have fil-ters for a detailed sampling of the far UVand near UV wavelengths, contrasting withthe GALEX UV mission which had just twobroad bands.Together with the higher reso-lution of the UVIT, this provides a uniqueopportunity for studying star formation andstellar populations in nearby galaxies. Thenarrower filters in UVIT will also allow themapping of extinction. The survey will in-clude galaxies across the Hubble sequence,which is a classification based on morphol-ogy in the optical region. It will also includegalaxies which are in groups, since gravita-tional interactions between galaxies in closeproximity are seen to initiate star formationand lead to a change in morphology. A selec-tion list of galaxies for such a survey is beingmade and known data for the galaxies arebeing compiled. Observations in the groundbased U-band for many objects is lacking andsuch observations had been started with the2m HCT. These will also be done with thenew 1.3m telescope at VBO. The UVIT sur-vey will enable the study of Star formationand its effect on morphology, the Stellar pop-ulations in the galaxies and the effect of inter-actions between galaxies on Star formationand the stellar populations.

(A. K. Pati)

Alternative cosmological theory

The topic –whether Einstein’s GR is the ul-timate theory of gravity – has drawn a lot

of research interest in the context of cosmol-ogy. The acceleration of the Universe canbe explained either by a mysterious energycomponent or it could be the effect of a mod-ified theory of gravity at large cosmologicalscale. As, all the evidences for dark energyis purely through its gravitation effects, bothof the above explanation of dark energy isstill viable. In general all modified theoryof gravity introduces a long range cosmolog-ical force which plays the role of dark en-ergy. Whereas in solar system scale, thisforce hides itself (through chameleon mecha-nism), so that the experimental tests of GRwith huge accuracy is not violated. In thiswork, the authors have taken this alterna-tive theory and derived the modified cosmol-ogy and constrained it from PLanck, HST,SDSS and WMAP data. Generally, this the-ory contains a parameter, which is a measureof the strength of the fifth force. It was foundthat the recent cosmological data allows themaximum value of this force to be 1/5th ofgravitational force if it has to play the roleof dark energy at 2 σ confidence.

Constraining chameleon gravity through Planck,WMAP, HST and SDSS data.

(S. Das, Yvonne Y. Y. Wong*, & DanielBoriero*)

Dark matter

The authors proposed a scenario where thefundamental particles constituting the dark


Dark Matter from degenerate micronuggets ofultralight trapped fermions

matter are low-mass fermions. While an eV-scale to keV-scale mass fermion like a neu-trino or sterile neutrino could account for theabundance of dark matter in the Universe itis typically rejected as a viable dark-mattercandidate due to its excessive free-streamingprior to structure formation. We discusshere a scenario where some fraction of suchultralight fermions undergo a phase transi-tion during the radiation dominated epochdriven by a scalar-mediated force and remaintrapped in micronuggets of degenerate mat-ter (akin to white dwarfs or neutron stars)that are stable over cosmological timescales.These TeV mass micronuggets as a whole be-have like cold dark matter. Like the case ofsoliton star or fermion Q-star, the stabilityof the dark matter nugget is achieved whenthe fermi pressure is balanced by the attrac-

tive scalar force. In the Thomas-Fermi ap-proximation, we numerically solve the radialprofile of the scalar field, fermion mass andnumber density for the static configurationand find that the nugget radius can be assmall as micro meter radius. By consideringthe fermion decay into the scalar, we showthat the lifetime of the nugget can be largerthan the age of the Universe. While anylight sterile neutrino can match this scenario,we also consider whether an active neutrinocould form such dark matter nugget and con-straints from the self-interaction of dark mat-ter.

(S. Das & Kris Sigurdson*)

2.4 Atomic and Molecu-

lar Physics

Atomic astrophysics

Atomic spectra plays an important role inmany different situations in astrophysics. The-ories that take into account relativistic andmany-electron effects to determine the spec-troscopic properties of closed shell atoms andions–ionization potentials and polarizabili-ties have been used. Both these propertieshave been calculated to a high degree of accu-racy. An important feature of our work wasa high precision calculation of the ionizationpotential of the heavy element xenon, whichwas detected fairly recently in the spectrumof a hot white dwarf.

(B. P. Das)

Non-Accelerator Particle Physics

The electric dipole moment (EDM) of a phys-ical system arises from parity and time-reversalviolations. The CPT theorem implies thattime-reversal violation and CP violation are


equivalent. It therefore follows that the ob-servation of an EDM is a signature of CP vi-olation. Atomic and molecular EDM are ex-cellent candidates for studying CP violationas well as probing new physics beyond theStandard Model of particle interactions. Ourwork in the past year focused on the EDMof atomic xenon. Using a relativistic theorywhich incorporated the interaction betweenthe electrons in a rigorous manner, and com-bining with the latest EDM measurement ofxenon, we determined limits on CP violat-ing hadronic and semi-leptonic coupling con-stants. The accuracy of the measurementof xenon EDM is likely to improve by threeor four orders of magnitude in the next fewyears. This would correspondingly improvethe accuracy of the limits of the CP violat-ing coupling constants from our work and itwould then be possible to constrain certainsupersymmetric models.

(B. P. Das)

Ultra-cool Atoms

The phases of ultra-cool matter is a topic ofgreat current interest. It is possible to studythe behaviour of ultra-cool atoms by suit-ably manipulating beams of laser light. Theauthors have examined the phases of ultra-cold atoms in lattices formed by lasers in thepresence of an additional potential. Using asuitable quantum many-body theory whichtakes into account the interaction betweenthe ultra-cool atoms as well as their hoppingfrom one site to another, they have obtainednovel phases involving superfluids and exoticinsulators.

(B. P. Das)

Properties of super-heavy elements

Theoretical investigations of the super-heavyelements are extremely challenging and areoften the sole source of useful chemical in-formation. In this context, multi referenceFock-space coupled cluster has been appliedto evaluate the ionization potential (IP), ex-citation energies (EE), nuclear magnetic hy-perfine constant etc. for singly ionized Eka-Lead (Fl II). Similar calculations are alsoperformed for Lead ion (Pb II) to assess theaccuracy of the theoretical estimates of Flion. The higher IPs and EEs of Fl II withrespect to Pb II, suggest Eka-Lead (Fl) tobe less metallic and more inert than Pb.

(R. K. Chaudhuri)

The nuclear quadrupole moment (NQM)

The nuclear quadrupole moment (NQM) thatemerges due to the non spherical distributionof the nuclear charge plays an important rolein atomic, molecular, and solid state spec-troscopy besides the direct interest in nu-clear physics, where its determination can beused to check nuclear models. The informa-tion of NQM is also useful for the evaluationof the nuclear magnetic resonance measure-ments in biological systems. Here, state-of-the-art coupled cluster based linear responsetheory for electron detachment processes isemployed to determine the electric field gra-dients (EFG) of halide nuclei. The EFGs re-sulted from these calculations are the com-bined with experimental nuclear quadrupolecoupling constants (NQCC) to determine thenuclear quadrupole moments (NQM) halidenuclei.

(R. K. Chaudhuri)


2.5 Experimental Astro-

physics and Instrumen-

tation

Study of coronal abundances using X-ray solar monitor on board Chandrayaan-1 X-ray Spectrometer (C1XS)

The X-ray Solar Monitor (XSM) on the In-dian lunar mission Chandrayaan-1 was usedto study the 1.8-20 keV solar X-ray spec-trum. It was used to derive absolute coronalabundances using intensities of emission-linecomplexes and the plasma temperature. Thebest estimates were obtained from a C2.8-class flare in 2009. The well-known first-ionization potential (FIP) effect is observed;abundances are enhanced for the low-FIP ele-ments Fe, Ca, and Si, while the intermediate-FIP element S shows values close to the pho-tospheric abundance. The derived coronalabundances show a quasi-mass-dependent pat-tern of fractionation. This study also sug-gested possible abundance variations withprogression of the flare.

(P. S. Athiray, K. N. Kusuma*, S. Naren-dranath* & P. Sreekumar)

Study of lunar surface elemental abun-dances using Chandrayaan-1 X-ray Spec-trometer (C1XS)

Using data from the Chandrayaan-1 X-raySpectrometer (C1XS) experiment onboardChandrayaan-1, we detected the first unam-biguous evidence of enhanced Sodium fromthe lunar surface using the X-ray fluorescence(XRF) technique. During the nine monthsof remote sensing observations (Nov 2008 -Aug 2009), C1XS measured XRF emissionfrom the Moon under several solar flare con-ditions. The entire C1XS observational datawere systematically analysed to address el-

emental abundances of major rock-formingelements viz., Mg, Al, Si and Ca includ-ing Na from the lunar surface. The derivedabundances of Na (2-3 wt%) are significantlyhigher than what has been known from ear-lier studies. This supports recent theories

Spectrum showing signatures of rock-forming el-ements including first direct detection of Na us-ing X-rays.

and findings of intermediate plagioclase onthe Moon. The qualitative and quantitativestudy of Na abundance by X-rays will be oneof the prime science objectives of the CLASSinstrument on India’s upcoming second mis-sion to the Moon, Chandrayaan-2.

( S. Narendranath*, P. Sreekumar*, L. Alha*,K. Sankarasubramanian, J. Huovelin* & P.S. Athiray)

Coelostat drive system for SAG,ISRO

The Space Astronomy Group (SAG), ISROSatellite Centre, is involved in the develop-ment of an IR Spectrometer for Planetaryatmospheric applications. As part of the re-quirement to complete the end to end testof the spectrometer and to validate the ra-diative transfer model which is being devel-oped at SAG in connection with the MarsMission program and to study its perfor-mance by using the sunlight and possibility


The infrared spectrometer setup in the lab andthe heliostat (outside) which feeds the solar im-age, installed at the Satellite Centre of ISRO inBangalore.

to obtain both the solar as well as terres-trial absorption lines, ISRO Satellite Centresought to borrow a coelostat/heliostat sys-tem from IIA for tracking the solar beam in-side the laboratory continuously for workingwith the infrared spectrometer instrumentalset-up. The Ceolostat system comprising of12 primary mirrors and 8 secondary mirrors,MO92 stepper motor drive system with vari-able thumbwheel operation mode for track-ing control and hand set for adjustment ofthe image, were assembled and tested at IIAin December 2013. The 6 objective lens wasinstalled so as to provide the solar image inthe lab. The entire set up was positioned,aligned for true polar axis, and checked fortracking accuracy during the second week ofFebruary 2014. The second figure shows theexperimental setup in the Lab and the Helio-stat setup just outside the lab at the ISROStellite Centre, Bangalore.

(N. Sivaraj, S. P. Bagare, K. Sankarasubra-manian* and Bhavesh Jaiswal*)

Multiband photo-polarimeter

The polarimeter, which was under develop-ment, was completely dismantled and re-

assembled after cleaning all the parts. Thepulse counters were tested using laboratorysignal generators and their performance wasfound to be satisfactory. All the macros de-veloped for the PIC microcontrollers, whichperforms all the time-critical functions of thepolarimeter, were checked, and the neces-sary modifications were made. The commu-nication link between the electronic interfaceand the Linux machine used for the opera-tion of the polarimeter was also thoroughlytested, and the stability of the link was foundto be extremely good. The instrument hasthree photomultiplier tubes for the simulta-neous recording of the signal in three spectralbands; two uncooled PMTs for the ultravio-let and blue region of the spectrum and acooled PMT for the visual and red region.The dark counts from all the three PMTswere monitored several days for their stabil-ity. All the optical components of the po-larimeters, including the dichroic and glassfilters, were mounted inside the polarimeter,and the alignment of the components werechecked using a laser beam. We made prepa-rations for a thorough testing of the instru-ment as whole before taking it to Kavalurfor field trials. Arrangements were made forobtaining a fiber-linked f/13 optics combina-tion to test the data acquisition and analysisprogram using an artificial white light sourcein the laboratory. The results were foundto be satisfactory. The authors plan to takeit to Kavalur soon to mount it onto the 1-m Carl Zeiss telescope and observe standardpolarized and unpolarized stars for assessingits actual performance at the site and hopethe instrument will be available for regularobservations, commencing from the next ob-serving season.

(G. Srinivasulu, S. Muneer, K. Jayakumar,M. R. Somashekar, K. Sagayanathan & S.Ramamoorthy)

Chapter 3

PUBLICATIONS

In Journals

Anupama, G. C., Kamath U. S. and 9 col-leagues 2013. The 2010 outburst and pre-outburst optical spectrum of the recurrentnova U Scorpii. Astronomy and Astrophysics559, A121.

*Arellano Ferro, A., *Bramich D. M., *FigueraJaimes R, Giridhar, Sunetra, *Kains N., Kup-puswamy, K. and 33 colleagues 2013. A de-tailed census of variable stars in the globularcluster NGC 6333 (M9) from CCD differ-ential photometry. Monthly Notices of theRoyal Astronomical Society 434, 1220-1238.

*Arellano Ferro,A., *Bramich, D. M., Girid-har, S., *Figuera Jaimes, R., *Kains, N.,Kuppuswamy, K. 2013. Variable Stars in theGlobular Cluster NGC 288: [Fe/H] and Dis-tance. Acta Astronomica 63, 429-451.

*Arlot, J.-E., *Emelyanov, N. V., *Aslan, Z.,*Assafin, M., *Bel, J., Bhatt, B. C., *Braga-Ribas, F., *Camargo, J. I. B., *Casas, R.,*Colas, F., and 14 coauthors, Astrometricresults of observations of mutual occultationsand eclipses of the Uranian satellites in 2007,2013, A&A, 557A, 4A.

Athiray, P. S., *Sudhakar, M., *Tiwari, M. K.,*Narendranath, S., *Lodha, G. S., *Deb,

∗ Collaborators from other Institutions

S. K., Sreekumar, P., *Dash, S. K. 2013. Ex-perimental validation of XRF inversion codefor Chandrayaan-1. Planetary and SpaceScience 89, 183-187.

*Basavaraju, R. M., Akondi, V., *Weddell,S. J., Budihal, R. P. 2014. Myopic aberra-tions: Simulation based comparison of cur-vature and Hartmann Shack wavefront sen-sors. Optics Communications 312, 23-30.

*Belu, A. R., Sahu D. K., Anupama G. C.,and 8 colleagues 2013. Habitable planetseclipsing Brown dwarfs: Strategies for detec-tion and characterization. The AstrophysicalJournal 768, 125.

Bhavya, B., Subramaniam, A., *Kuriakose,V. C. 2013. Study of young stellar objectsand associated filamentary structures in theinner Galaxy. Monthly Notices of the RoyalAstronomical Society 435, 663-678.

*Bose, S., and 10 colleagues 2013. Supernova2012aw - a high-energy clone of archetypalType IIP SN 1999em. Monthly Notices ofthe Royal Astronomical Society 433, 1871-1891.

*Calchi Novati, S.,Safonova, M., Subrama-niam, A., and 17 colleagues 2014. The M31Pixel Lensing PLAN Campaign: MACHOlensing and self-lensing signals. The Astro-

44


physical Journal 783, 86.

Chandrashekhar, K., *Bemporad, A., Baner-jee, D., Gupta, G. R., *Teriaca, L. 2014.Characteristics of polar coronal hole jets. As-tronomy and Astrophysics 561, A104.

Chandrashekhar, K., Krishna Prasad, S.,Banerjee, D., Ravindra, B., *Seaton, D. B.2013. Dynamics of Coronal Bright Points asSeen by Sun Watcher Using Active Pixel Sys-tem Detector and Image Processing (SWAP),Atmospheric Imaging Assembly (AIA), andHelioseismic and Magnetic Imager (HMI).Solar Physics 286, 125-142.

Chandrashekhar, K., *Morton, R. J., Baner-jee, D., Gupta, G. R. 2014. The dynamicalbehaviour of a jet in an on-disk coronal holeobserved with AIA/SDO. Astronomy and As-trophysics 562, A98.

*Chakraborti, S., *Ray, A., *Smith, R., *Ry-der, S., *Yadav, N., Sutaria, F., *Dwarkadas,V. V., *Chandra, P., *Pooley, D., *Roy, R.2013.The Progenitor of SN 2011ja: Cluesfrom circumstellar interaction. The Astro-physical Journal 774, 30.

Chatterjee, S., *Vani, V. C., Ravinder K.Banyal. 2013. Intensity profile of light scat-tered from a rough surface, Applied Optics,52, 6000-6010.

*Choudhury S., Subramaniam A., *PiattiA.E., 2013. CT1 Washington photometryof mostly unstudied Large Magellanic Cloudstar clusters, BAAA, Vol. 56.

*Couto, G., *Storchi-Bergmann, T., *Axon,D., *Robinson, A., Kharb, P., *Riffel, R.,Kinematics and excitation of the nuclear spi-ral in the active galaxy Arp102B, 2013, MN-RAS, 435, 2982.

Dhananjay, K. 2014. Site evaluation studyfor the Indian National Large Solar Telescopeusing microthermal measurements. MonthlyNotices of the Royal Astronomical Society437, 2092-2105.

Dhar, A., *Mishra, T., *Maji, M., *Pai,R. V., *Mukerjee, S., *Paramekanti, A. 2013.Chiral Mott insulator with staggered loop cur-rents in the fully frustrated Bose-Hubbardmodel. Physical Review B 87, 174501.

Dhar, A., *Mishra, T., *Pai, R. V., *Muk-erjee, S., Das, B. P. 2013. Hard-core bosonsin a zig-zag optical superlattice. Physical Re-view A 88, 053625.

*Dhara, S. K., Ravindra, B., Banyal, R. K.2014. Filament eruption in association withrotational motion near the filament footpoints.New Astronomy 26, 86-97.

*Dhara, S. K., Ravindra B. Ravinder K.Banyal, 2014. Observations of photosphericvortical motions during the early stage of fil-ament eruption. Solar Physics (in press).

*Dicken, D., *Tadhunter, C., *Morganti, etal., Kharb, P., et al., 2014. Spitzer spec-troscopy of 2Jy and 3CRR radio galaxies II:AGN power indicators and unification, 2014,ApJ, 788, 98.

*Dopita, M., *Scharwchter, J., Shastri, P.,*Kewley, L., *Davies, R., *Sutherland, R.,Kharb, P., *Jose, J., et al., 2014. Prob-ing the physics of the narrow-line regions ofSeyfert Galaxies I: The case of NGC 5427,2014, A&A, 566, 41.

*Eswaraiah, C., *Maheswar, G., *Pandey,A. K., Jose, J., *Ramaprakash, A. N., Bhatt,H. C. 2013. A study of the starless dark cloud


LDN 1570: Distance, dust properties, andmagnetic field geometry. Astronomy and As-trophysics 556, A65.

*Eulaers, E., Stalin, C. S., Prabhu, T. P.,and 8 colleagues 2013. COSMOGRAIL: theCOSmological MOnitoring of GRAvItationalLenses. XII. Time delays of the doubly lensedquasars SDSS J1206+4332 and HS 2209+1914.Astronomy and Astrophysics 553, A121.

*Figuera Jaimes, R., *Arellano Ferro, A.,*Bramich, D. M., Giridhar, S., Kuppuswamy,K. 2013. Variable stars in the globular clusterNGC 7492. New discoveries and physical pa-rameter determination. Astronomy and As-trophysics 556, A20.

*Garcıa-Hernandez, D. A., Kameswara Rao,N., *Lambert, D. L. 2013. Dust around RCoronae Borealis stars. II. Infrared emissionfeatures in an H-poor environment. The As-trophysical Journal 773, 107.

Giridhar, S., Goswami, A., *Kunder, A.,Muneer, S., Selvakumar, G. 2013. Identi-fication of metal-poor stars using the artifi-cial neural network. Astronomy and Astro-physics 556, A121.

*Gogoi, M. M., *Moorthy, K. K., *Kompalli,S. K., *Chaubey, J. P., *Babu, S. S., *Manoj,M. R., *Nair, V. S., Prabhu, T. P. 2014.Physical and optical properties of aerosolsin a free tropospheric environment: Resultsfrom long-term observations over western trans-Himalayas. Atmospheric Environment 84,262-274.

*Gothe, K. S., and 29 colleagues 2013. Point-ing of HAGAR telescope mirrors. Experi-mental Astronomy 35, 489-506.

*Goyal, A., *Gopal-Krishna, *Wiita, P. J.,

Stalin, C. S., *Sagar, R. 2013. Improvedcharacterization of intranight optical vari-ability of prominent AGN classes. MonthlyNotices of the Royal Astronomical Society435, 1300-1312.

*Goyal, A., *Mhaskey, M., *Gopal-Krishna,*Wiita, P. J., Stalin, C. S., *Sagar, R. 2013.On the photometric error calibration for thedifferential light curves of Point-like ActiveGalactic Nuclei. Journal of Astrophysics andAstronomy 34, 273-296.

*Hegde, M., Hiremath, K. M., 2014. Coronalhole oscillations inferred from the SDO/AIAdata, Advances in Space Research, 54, 272,2014.

*Hazra, G., *Karak, B. B., Choudhuri, A. R.2014. Is a deep one-cell meridional circula-tion essential for the flux transport solar dy-namo ?. The Astrophysical Journal 782, 93.

Javaraiah, J. 2013. A comparison of solar cy-cle variations in the equatorial rotation ratesof the Sun’s subsurface, surface, corona, andSunspot groups. Solar Physics 287, 197-214.

Javaraiah, J., 2014. Long-term variations inthe north-south asymmetry of solar activityand solar cycle prediction III: Prediction forthe amplitude of solar cycle 25. NewA 34, 54.

*Jiang, P., and 52 colleagues 2013. Verylow mass stellar and substellar companionsto solar-like stars from MARVELS. IV. Acandidate brown dwarf or low-mass stellarcompanion to HIP 67526. The Astronomi-cal Journal 146, 65.

*Kains, N., *Bramich, D. M., *Arellano Ferro,A., *Figuera Jaimes, R., Jrgensen, U. G.,Giridhar, S.; *Penny, M. T., *Alsubai, K.


A., *Andersen, J. M., *Bozza, V.; and 40coauthors 2013. Estimating the parametersof globular cluster M 30 (NGC 7099) fromtime-series photometry A&A, 555, 36.

Kameswara Rao, N., Birdie, Christina, Vagiswari, A. 2014, Bhavnagar telescope: themost widely travelled telescope in the coun-try. Current Science, 106, 617-619.

Kameswara Rao, N., Vagiswari, A., Birdie,Christina, 2014, Charles Michie Smith - founderof the Kodaikanal (Solar Physics) Observa-tory and beginnings of physical astronomy inIndia. Current Science, 106, p 447-467.

Kapoor, R. C. 2013. Indian astronomy andthe transits of Venus. 1: The early observa-tions. Journal of Astronomical History andHeritage 16, 269-286.

Kapoor, R. C. 2014. Indian astronomy andthe transits of Venus. 2: The 1874 event.Journal of Astronomical History and Her-itage 17, 113-135.

*Karthick, M. C., L ’opez-S ’anchez, ’A. R.,*Sahu, D. K., *Sanwal, B. B., *Bisht, S.2014. Photometric and spectroscopic stud-ies of star-forming regions within Wolf-Rayetgalaxies. Monthly Notices of the Royal As-tronomical Society 439, 157-178.

Kharb, P., *O’Dea, C., *Baum, S., *Hardcas-tle, M., *Dicken, D., *Croston, J., *Mingo,B., *Noel-Storr, J., 2014, VLBA observationsof Mrk 6: Probing the jet-lobe connection,MNRAS, 440, 2976.

Krishna Prasad, S., Banerjee, D., *Van Doors-selaere, T. 2014. Frequency-dependent damp-ing in propagating slow magneto-acoustic wavesApJ, 789, 118.

Kumar, B., and 15 colleagues 2013. Lightcurve and spectral evolution of the Type IIbsupernova 2011fu. Monthly Notices of theRoyal Astronomical Society 431, 308-321.

Kumar, D., Gangadhara, R. T. 2013. Therole of rotation and polar-cap currents onpulsar radio emission and polarization. TheAstrophysical Journal 769,104.

*Kumara, S. T., Kariyappa, R.,and 10 col-leagues 2014. Segmentation of coronal fea-tures to understand the solar EUV and UVirradiance variability. Astronomy and Astro-physics 561, A9.

*Lee, Y. S., and 10 colleagues 2013. Carbon-enhanced metal-poor Stars in SDSS/SEGUE.I. Carbon abundance estimation and frequencyof CEMP stars. The Astronomical Journal146, 132.

*Lemmerer, B., *Utz, D., *Hanslmeier, A.,*Veronig, A., *Thonhofer, S., *Grimm-Strele,H., Kariyappa, R. 2014. Two-dimensionalsegmentation of small convective patterns inradiation hydrodynamics simulations. As-tronomy and Astrophysics 563, A107.

*Maeda, K., Sahu, D. K., Anupama, G. C.,and 15 colleagues 2013. Properties of NewlyFormed Dust Grains in the Luminous TypeIIn Supernova 2010jl. The AstrophysicalJournal 776, 5.

*Meech, K. J., and 28 colleagues 2013. Out-gassing behavior of C/2012 S1 (ISON) from2011 September to 2013 June. The Astro-physical Journal 776, L20.

Mohan, P., Mangalam, A. 2014, X-ray vari-ability and the inner region in AGN ApJ (inpress)


Murthy, J. 2014. The diffuse ultraviolet fore-ground. Astrophysics and Space Science,349, 165-169.

Muthumariappan, C., Parthasarathy, M., *Ita,Y. 2013. Radiative transfer modelling of dustin IRAS 18333-2357: the only planetary neb-ula in the metal-poor globular cluster M22.Monthly Notices of the Royal AstronomicalSociety 435, 606-622.

*Narendranath, S., Sreekumar, P., *Alha,L., Sankarasubramanian, K., *Huovelin, J.,Athiray, P. S. 2013. Elemental abundancesin the solar corona as measured by the X-raysolar monitor onboard Chandrayaan-1. SolarPhysics, Volume 289, Issue 5, pp. 1585-1595.

Nayak, A., Sreejith, A. G., Safonova, M.,Murthy, J. 2013, High-altitude ballooning pro-gramme at the Indian Institute of Astro-physics, Curr. Sci., 104, 6, 708. 70.

Ningombam, S. S.,Bagare, S. P., *Sinha, N.,*Singh, R. B., *Srivastava, A. K., *Lar-son, E., *Kanawade, V. P. 2014. Charac-terization of aerosol optical properties overthe high-altitude station Hanle, in the trans-Himalayan region. Atmospheric Research138, 308-323.

S. S. Ningombam, S. P. Bagare, R. B. Singh,M. *Campanelli, P., Khatri, N. Dorjey. 2014,Calibration of a Sky radiometer (Prede) us-ing observations obtained from Hanle andMerak high-altitude stations in Ladakh, At-mospheric Research 143, 118-128.

*Ninan, J. P., *Ojha, D. K., Bhatt, B. C.,*Ghosh, S. K., *Mohan, V., *Mallick, K. K.,*Tamura, M., *Henning, T. 2013. Reap-pearance of McNeil’s Nebula (V1647 Orio-nis) and its outburst environment. The As-trophysical Journal 778, 116.

*O’Dea, C. P., *Baum, S. A., *Tremblay,G. R., Kharb, P., *Cotton, W., *Perley, R.2013. Hubble Space Telescope Observationsof Dusty Filaments in Hercules A: Evidencefor Entrainment. The Astrophysical Journal771, 38.

Paliya, V. S., Stalin, C. S., Shukla, A., Sa-hayanathan, S. 2013. The Nature of gamma-Ray Loud Narrow-line Seyfert I Galaxies PKS1502+036 and PKS 2004-447. The Astro-physical Journal 768, 52.

Park, C., Pranav, P., Chingangbam, P., *vande Weygaert, R., *Jones, B., *Vegter, G.,*Kim, I., *Hidding, J., *Hellwing, W. A.2013. Betti Numbers of Gaussian Fields.Journal of Korean Astronomical Society 46,125-131

*Paragi, Z., *Frey, S., *Kaaret, P., *Cseh,D., *Overzier, R., Kharb, P., 2014, No Ev-idence for an Active Massive Black Hole inthe Center of NGC404, ApJ, in press.

*Pathak, H., *Ghosh, A., *Sahoo, B. K.,Das, B. P., *Vaval, N., *Pal, S., 2014, Rel-ativistic equation of motion method for thedouble ionization potentials of closed shellatoms Phys. Rev. A Rapid Communication90, 010501

*Pathak, H., *Sahoo, B. K., Das, B. P.,*Vaval N., *Pal, S., 2014, Relativistic equa-tion of motion coupled cluster method: Appli-cation to closed shell atomic systems, Phys.Rev. A 89, 042510.

Prabhu, K., Rangarajan,K. E., Ravindra,B., Sankarasubramanian, K., Selvendran, R.,Kumaravel, P. 2013. Transit of Venus on2012 June 06: stray light estimation andrestoration of Ca-K images of Twin Tele-


scope from Kodaikanal Observatory. Bulletinof the Astronomical Society of India 41, 227-235.

Prasad A., Mangalam A., Ravindra B., 2014,Separable solutions of force-free spheres andapplications to solar active regions ApJ, 786,81.

Preethi, K., *Gudennavar, S. B., *Bubbly,S. G., Murthy, J., *Brosch, N. 2014. Photo-metric identification of objects from GalaxyEvolution Explorer Survey and Sloan DigitalSky Survey. Monthly Notices of the RoyalAstronomical Society 437, 771-776.

Priyal, M., Singh, J., Ravindra, B., Priya,T. G., Amareswari, K. 2014. Long term vari-ations in chromospheric features from Ca-Kimages at Kodaikanal. Solar Physics 289,137-152.

Priyal, Muthu, Banerjee, Dipankar, *Karak,Bidya Binay, *Munoz-Jaramillo, *Andres, Ravin-dra, B., Choudhuri, *Arnab Rai, Singh, Jagdev.2014. Polar Network Index as a magneticproxy for the solar cycle studies Apj (inpress).

*Raja Bayanna, A., *Kumar, B., *Venkatakr-ishnan, P., *Kunchandy Mathew, S., Ravin-dra, B., *Mathur, S., *Garcia, R. A. 2014.On the line profile changes observed dur-ing the X2.2 class flare in the active regionNOAA 11158. Research in Astronomy andAstrophysics 14, 207-220.

Rajat K. Chaudhuri, *Sudip Chattopdahyay,*Uttam Sinha Mahapatra, 2013. Tamingthe electronic structure of lead and eka-lead(E114) by the relativistic coupled-cluster method.J. Phys. Chem. A, 117, 8555.

Rajat K. Chaudhuri, *Sudip Chattopadhyay,*Uttam Sinha Mahapatra, 2013. Reappraisal

of nuclear quadrupole moments of atomichalogens via relativistic coupled cluster linearresponse theory for the ionization process, J.Phys. Chem. A, 117, 12616.

Raju, K. P., *Bromage, B. J. I. 2014. Veloci-ties and linewidths in the network and cell in-teriors of a polar coronal hole compared withthe Quiet Sun. Solar Physics 289, 793-802.

Raju, K. P., Singh, J. 2014. Network andplage indices from Kodaikanal Ca-K data.Research in Astronomy and Astrophysics 14,229-232.

Ramesh, K. B., Vasantharaju, N. 2014. Tem-poral offsets among solar activity indicators.Astrophysics and Space Science, Volume 350,Issue 2, pp.479-487.

Ramesh, R., *Kishore, P., *Mulay, S. M.,*Barve, I. V., Kathiravan, C., *Wang, T. J.2013. Low-frequency observations of drifting,non-thermal continuum radio emission asso-ciated with the solar coronal mass ejections.The Astrophysical Journal 778, 30.

Ramya, P., Reddy, B. E., *Lambert, D. L.2013. Erratum: Chemical compositions ofstars in two stellar streams from the Galac-tic thick disc. Monthly Notices of the RoyalAstronomical Society 430, 2510-2510.

Rao, S. S., Giridhar, S. 2014. Chemical Com-positions of RV Tauri Stars and Related Ob-jects. RMxAA..50...49R.

Rathna kumar, S., Stalin C. S., Prabhu T. P.,and 8 colleagues 2013. COSMOGRAIL: theCOSmological MOnitoring of GRAvItationallenses. XIV. Time delay of the doubly lensedquasar SDSS J1001+5027. Astronomy andAstrophysics 557, A44.


*Ravichandran, S., Preethi, K., Safonova,M., Murthy, J. 2013. Large scale extinctionmaps with UVIT. Astrophysics and SpaceScience 344, 361-364.

Ravinder K. Banyal, Ravindra B., Chatter-jee, S. 2013. Opto-thermal analysis of alightweighted mirror for solar telescope, Op-tics Express, 21, 7065-7081.

Reddy, B. E. 2013. India’s participation inthe Thirty-Meter telescope project. Journalof Astrophysics and Astronomy 34, 87-95.

Safonova, M., Mohan, R., Sreejith, A. G.,Murthy, J. 2013, Predicting UV Sky for fu-ture UV missions. A&C, 1, 46. 69.

*Sahoo, B. K., *Barrett, M. D., Das, B. P.2013. Reliability test for the experimental re-sults of electric-quadrupole hyperfine-structureconstants and assessment of nuclear quadrupolemoments in 135Ba and 137Ba. Physical Re-view A 87, 042506.

Sahu, D. K., Anupama, G. C., *Anto, P.2013. Photometric and spectroscopic evolu-tion of supernova SN 2009an: another caseof a transitional Type Ia event. Monthly No-tices of the Royal Astronomical Society 430,869-887.

Sahu, D. K., Anupama, G. C., Chakradhari,N. K. 2013. One year of monitoring of theType IIb supernova SN 2011dh. Monthly No-tices of the Royal Astronomical Society 433,2-22.

Sampoorna, M., Nagendra, K. N., *Stenflo,J. O. 2013. Line-interlocking effects on po-larization in spectral lines by Rayleigh andRaman scattering. The Astrophysical Jour-nal 770, 92.

*Sarma, R., *Pathak, A., *Pradhan, A. C.,Murthy, J., *Sarma, J. K. 2014. On VI ab-sorption in the Milky way along the LargeMagellanic Cloud lines of sight. Advancesin Space Research 53, 963-966.

*Sasikumar Raja, K., Kathiravan, C., Ramesh,R., *Rajalingam, M., Barve, I. V. 2013.Design and performance of a low-frequencycross-polarized log-periodic dipole antenna.The Astrophysical Journal Supplement Se-ries 207, 2.

*Sasikumar Raja, K., Ramesh, R. 2013. Low-frequency observations of transient quasi-periodicradio emission from the solar atmosphere.The Astrophysical Journal 775, 38.

Sengupta, S. 2013. Spectro-polarimetry ofself-luminous extrasolar planets. Journal ofAstrophysics and Astronomy 34, 151-155.

Shalima, P., Murthy, J., *Gupta, R. 2013.Dust properties from GALEX observations ofa UV halo around Spica. Earth, Planets, andSpace 65, 1123-1126.

*Shashanka R Gurumath, Hiremath, K. M.,*Ramasubramanian, V., 2014. On the rela-tionship between masses of Sun like G-starsand their exoplanets, Shashanka R Guru-math, Hiremath, K.M. and Ramasubrama-nian, V., New Advances in Physics, in press.

*Shchekinov, Y. A., Safonova, M., Murthy,J. 2013. Planets in the early Universe. As-trophysics and Space Science 346, 31-40.

*Singh, Y., *Sahoo, B. K., Das, B. P. 2014.Ab initio determination of the P- and T-violating coupling constants in atomic Xe bythe relativistic-coupled-cluster method. Phys-


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Sivaram, C., *Arun, K. 2013. Holography,dark energy and entropy of large cosmic struc-tures. Astrophysics and Space Science 348,217-219.

*Soam, A., *Maheswar, G., Bhatt, H. C.,*Lee, C. W., *Ramaprakash, A. N. 2013.Magnetic fields in cometary globules - IV.LBN 437. Monthly Notices of the Royal As-tronomical Society 432, 1502-1512.

*Singh, V., Shastri, P., *Ishwara-Chandra,C. H., *Athreya, R. 2013. Low-frequency ra-dio observations of Seyfert galaxies: A test ofthe unification scheme. Astronomy and As-trophysics 554, A85.

*Singh, Y., *Sahoo, B. K., Das, B. P. 2013.Correlation trends in the ground-state staticelectric dipole polarizabilities of closed-shellatoms and ions. Physical Review A 88,062504.

Sowmya, K., Nagendra, K. N., *Stenflo, J.O., Sampoorna, M. 2014. Polarized scat-tering with Paschen-Back effect, hyperfinestructure, and partial frequency redistribu-tion in magnetized stellar atmospheres. ApJ,786, 150

Sreenath, B. N., Arun, K., Sivaram, C. 2013.Is there lower limit to velocity or velocitychange?. Astrophysics and Space Science345, 209-211.

Srinivasa Rao, M., Varghese, B. A. 2014. Re-flection effect in close binaries: effects of re-flection on spectral lines. Astrophysics andSpace Science 349, 835-842.

Steiner, O., Salhab,R., Freytag, B., Rajaguru,S. P., Schaffenberger, W., Steffen, M.,2014,

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Subramaniam, A., *Adara, B. 2013. Classifi-cation and disk parameters of Herbig Ae/Bestars using WISE and AKARI data. Bulletinof the Astronomical Society of India 41, 247.

Subramanian, S., Subramaniam, A. 2013.Structure of the Large Magellanic Cloud fromnear infrared magnitudes of red clump stars.Astronomy and Astrophysics 552, A144.

Subramanian, S., Subramaniam, A., *Simard,L., *Gillies, K., *Ramaprakash, A. N., Anu-pama, G. C., Stalin, C. S., Ravindranath,S., Reddy, B. E. 2013. Generation of a NearInfra-Red Guide Star Catalog for Thirty-MeterTelescope Observations. Journal of Astro-physics and Astronomy 34, 175-192.

*Suthar, Yogita, *Venkatakrishnan, P., Ravin-dra, B., *Jaaffrey, S. N. A., The evolutionof the Net Twist Current and the Net ShearCurrent in Active Region NOAA 10930, 2014,Solar Physics, 289, 2459S

*Swathi, P. S., *Indira, N. K., *Rayner, P.J., *Ramonet, M., *Jagdeesha, D., Bhatt, B.C., Gaur, V. K., Robust inversion of carbondioxide fluxes over temporal Asia in 2006-2008, Current Science, 2013, 105, 25.

Vigeesh, G., Hasan, S. S. 2013. Acousticemission from magnetic flux tubes in the so-lar network. Journal of Physics ConferenceSeries 440, 012045.

*Vijayan, M., *Kannoth, S., *Varghese, G.,*Earnest, A., *Jade, S., Bhatt, B. C., *Gupta,


S. S. 2013. Spatio-temporal variability ofionospheric Total Electron Content (TEC)over the Indian subcontinent derived fromgeodetic GPS network. AGU Fall MeetingAbstracts 1957.

*Yadav, N., and 10 colleagues 2014. Elec-tron cooling in a Young Radio Supernova:SN 2012aw. The Astrophysical Journal 782,30.

In Conference Proceedings

Anantha, C., *Roy, J., Mahesh, P. K., Pari-har, P. S., *Sangal, A. K., Sriram, S., Anand,M. N., Anupama, G. C., Giridhar, S., Prabhu,T. P., Sivarani, T., Sundararajan, M. S.,2013. HESP: Instrument control, calibrationand pipeline development. Astronomical So-ciety of India Conference Series 9, 136.

Anusha, L. S. Nagendra, K. N., 2014, in SolarPolarization 7, September 2013, Kunming,China, Eds K. N. Nagendra, J. O. Stenflo,Z. Q. Qu, M. Sampoorna, ASPCS, 489, 225(in press). Multi-Dimensional Polarized Ra-diative Transfer: Methods and Solar Appli-cations

Athiray, P. S., *Kusuma, K. N., *Naren-dranath, S., Sreekumar, P., 2014. Direct Ev-idence of Enhanced Sodium Content on theMoon Around Tycho Region: C1XS Observa-tions 45th Lunar and Planetary Science Con-ference, 17-21 March, 2014, Texas. LPI Con-tribution No. 1777, p.1857

*Balmaverde, B., et al. Kharb, P., *Mac-chetto, F. D., *O’Dea, C. P., *Sparks, W.,2013, Extended soft X-ray emission in 3CRradio galaxies at z¡0.3: high excitation andbroad line galaxies, 2013, Memorie della So-cieta Astronomica Italiana, v.84, p.715.

*Belu, A. R., and 13 colleagues 2013. Near-future habitable exoplanets eclipse spectroscopy,and expected final number of cases challenge.The ’brown dwarf reserve’. European Plane-tary Science Congress 2013, held 8-13 Septem-ber in London, id.EPSC2013-700 8, 700.

Bhavya, B.; Subramaniam, Annapurni; Kuri-akose, V. C., 2013. Star formation in the in-ner galaxy and associated filamentary struc-tures. ASI Conference Series, 2013, Vol. 9,pp 74, Edited by Pushpa Khare & C. H.Ishwara-Chandra.

*Bose, S., *Kumar, B., Sutaria, F., *Roy, R.,*Kumar, B., *Bhatt, V. K., *Chakraborti,S. 2014. Optical observations of supernova2012aw. IAU Symposium 296, 334-335.

*Carini, M. T., *Goyal, A., Jose, J. 2014.RCT photometry and HCT spectroscopy ofblazar candidates in the Kepler field of view.American Astronomical Society Meeting Ab-stracts No.223,No.150.15.

*Chakraborti, S., *Ray, A., *Smith, R., *Ry-der, S., *Yadav, N., Sutaria, F., *Dwarkadas,V. V., *Chandra, P., *Pooley, D., *Roy, R.2014. The strange case of SN 2011ja and itshost. IAU Symposium 296, 342-343.

Chingangbam, P., *Park, C. 2014. Resid-ual foreground contamination in the WMAPdata. Journal of Physics Conference Series484, 012028.

*Choudhury S., Subramaniam A., Piatti A.E.,2013, Study of faint star clusters in the LMCusing Washington photometry ASInC, 9, 89.

Das, Mousumi, Investigating AGN-black holemasses in extreme late type spirals : Voidand LSB Galaxies 2013, ASInC, 9, 90. 2.


Das, M., Ramya, S., Sengupta, C., Mishra,K. 2013, Bulge-disk evolution in interactingbulgeless Galaxies 2013, ASPC, 477, 141.

Elayavalli Rangarajan, K., Sankarasubrama-nian, K., *Srivastava, N., *Venkatakrishnan,P., *Mathew, S., Bayanna, R., Hasan, S.,Prabhu, K. 2013. Prototype spectro-polarimeterfor the India’s National Large Solar Tele-scope. EGU General Assembly ConferenceAbstracts 15, 6932.

*Haris, U., *Parvathi, V. S., *Gudennavar,S. B., Murthy, J. 2013. Depletion studies inthe interstellar medium. American Instituteof Physics Conference Series 1543, 64-69.

Hasan, S. S. 2014. Scientific programmeswith India’s National Large Solar Telescopeand their contribution to prominence research.IAU Symposium 300, 355-361.

*Hegde, S. S., Vishveshwara, C. V. 2014. Op-tical analogues of spherically symmetric blackhole spacetimes. Journal of Physics Confer-ence Series 484, 012017.

*Krishnamoorthy, P., *Gudennavar, S. B.,Murthy, J. 2013. Mapping extinction us-ing GALEX and SDSS photometric observa-tions. American Institute of Physics Confer-ence Series 1543, 70-76.

*Lin, X., and 12 colleagues 2013. 5 years oflong-lived trace gas observations over the In-dian subcontinent: a study based on surfaceflask measurements. AGU Fall Meeting Ab-stracts 74.

Murthy, J. 2014. The 3-dimensional distri-bution of interstellar dust. IAU Symposium298, 213-220.

Nagendra, K. N., 2014, in Solar Polarization

7, September 2013, Kunming, China, EdsK. N. Nagendra, J. O. Stenflo, Z. Q. Qu,M. Sampoorna, ASPCS, 489, 179 (in press).Partial Redistribution Theory and its Appli-cations in the Interpretation of the SecondSolar Spectrum

*Narendranath, S.; *Tadeppalli, S. P.; Athi-ray, P. S.; *Misra, A.; Sreekumar, P., 2014.Ob-servations of the Geotail While in Lunar Or-bit by the Chandrayaan-1 X-Ray Spectrom-eter (C1XS) 45th Lunar and Planetary Sci-ence Conference, 17-21 March, 2014, Texas.LPI Contribution No. 1777, p.2199

*Ninan, J. P., *Ojha, D. K., *Ghosh, S. K.,Bhatt, B. C., 2013. Constraining models ofaccretion outbursts in low-mass YSOs, 2013.Proc. 31st Meeting of the ASI during Febru-ary 20-22, 2013. ASI Conf. Series (editor: P.Khare and C. H. Ishwara-CHandra), No. 9,p.78.

*Pandey, S. B., and 15 colleagues 2014. Evo-lution of the Type IIb SN 2011fu. IAU Sym-posium 296, 336-337.

*Panwar, N., *Chen, W. P., *Pandey, A.K., *Samal, M. R., *Ogura, K., *Ojha, D.K., Jose, J., Bhatt, B. C. 2014, Young Stel-lar Population of the Bright-Rimmed CloudsBRC 5, BRC 7 and BRC 39, MNRAS, inpress.

*Pradhan, A. C., *Pathak, A., Murthy, J.,*Ojha, D. K. 2014. Observations of O vi ab-sorption from the superbubbles of the LargeMagellanic Cloud. IAU Symposium 296,388-389.

Prasad A., Mangalam A., 2013, Models offorce-free spheres and applications to solaractive regions, eds Gopalswamy, N., Hasan,S. S., Rao, P. B., Subramanian, P 2013, ASI


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Rajaguru, S. P., Xudong Sun, Keiji Hayashi,Couvidat S., 2013 ASP Conference Proceed-ings, Vol. 478. San Francisco: AstronomicalSociety of the Pacific, 2013, p.345.

Ramya, P., Reddy,B. E. 2014. Moving groupsin the Galactic disc. IAU Symposium 298,77-82.

*Roy, R., and 13 colleagues 2014. The opti-cal photometric and spectroscopic investiga-tion of Type IIP supernova 2012A. IAU Sym-posium 296, 116-120.

Sahu, D. K., Anupama, G. C., Chakradhari,N. K. 2014. Optical studies of Type IIb SN2011dh. IAU Symposium 296, 338-339.

Sampoorna, M., 2014, in “Solar Polarization7”, September 2013, Kunming, China, EdsK. N. Nagendra, J. O. Stenflo*, Z. Q. Qu,M. Sampoorna*, ASPCS, 489, 197 (in press).Polarized Line Formation with Angle-Dependent Partial Frequency Redistribution.

Smitha, H. N., Nagendra, K. N., *Stenflo,J.O., Sampoorna, M., 2014, in Solar Polar-ization 7, September 2013, Kunming, China,Eds K. N. Nagendra, J. O. Stenflo, Z. Q. Qu,M. Sampoorna, ASPCS, 489, 213 (in press).The Role of Quantum Interference and Par-tial Redistribution in the Solar Ba II D2 4554Angstrom Line

Sowmya, K., Nagendra, K. N., Sampoorna,M., 2014. Intrinsically polarized blend linesProc. Solar Polarization Workshop 7 (SPW7),in press.

Subramaniam A. and Choudhury S., 2013,The metallicity map of the Large MagellanicCloud. ASInC, 9, 135.

Subramanian, Smitha, Subramaniam, A., 2013,Stellar Populations in the Magellanic Clouds,ASInc, 9, 63.

Supriya, H. D., Nagendra, K. N., Ravindra,B., Sampoorna, M., 2014, in Solar Polariza-tion 7, September 2013, Kunming, China,Eds K. N. Nagendra, J. O. Stenflo, Z. Q. Qu,M. Sampoorna, ASPCS, 489, 117 (in press).Electron Scattering Redistribution Effect onAtomic Line Polarization

Susmitha Rani A., Sivarani, T., 2013. Min-ing the SDSS database to probe the imprintsof the first stars of the Galaxy. AstronomicalSociety of India Conference Series 9, 120.

Sunetra, G., Sivarani, T., Anantha, C., Jayashree, R., *Anand, M. N., Anupama, G. C.,Mahesh, P. K., Parihar, P. S., Prabhu, T. P.,*Singhal, A. K., Sriram, S., Sundararajan,M. S., 2013. High Resolution SPectrometerfor HCT, Hanle: an update. AstronomicalSociety of India Conference Series 9, 100.

*Vijayan, M., *Kannoth, S., *Varghese, G.,*Earnest, A., *Jade, S., Bhatt, B. C., Gupta,S. S., 2013. Spatio-temporal variability ofionospheric Total Electron Content (TEC)over the Indian subcontinent derived fromgeodetic GPS network, American Geophys-ical Union, 2013, FM13.

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Yadav, R. K., Pandey, A. K., Sharma, S.,Jose, J., Ogura, K., Kobayashi, N., Samal,M. R., Eswaraiah, C.; Chandola, H. C. nad27 colleagues. 2014. Deep optical survey ofthe stellar content of Sh2-311 region, New


Astronomy, 34.

Technical Reports, Monographs,Circulars, ATel

Anupama, G. C., Selvakumar, G., Moorthy,V., Velu, C., Dinakaran, N., 2014, ATel,5871, 1 Optical observations of the recurrentnova V745 Sco.

*Bhalerao, V., Sahu, D. K. 2014, GCN 16244,1B GRB 140508A: HCT spectroscopy.

*Bhalerao, V., Paliya, V. S., Anupama, G.C., Stalin, C. S.,. 2014, GCN, 15697, 1 GRB140105A: HCT observations.

Jose J., 2014, GH conference proceedings,Stellar content of selected Galactic triggeredstar forming regions.

*Kantharia, N. G., *Roy, N., Anupama, G.C., *Banerjee, D. P. K., *Ashok, N. M.,*Dutta, P., Prabhu, T. P, *Johri, A., 2014,ATel, 5962, 1 Rapid rise in the radio syn-chrotron emission from the recurrent novasystem V745 Sco.

*Ninan, J. P. *Ojha, D. K., *Ghosh, S. K.,Anupama, G. C., Prabhu, T. P., Bhatt, B.C., Dust formation in Nova Cephei 2013,

2013, Astronomy Tel., 5269, 1

*Nirupam Roy, *Kantharia, N. G., *PrasunDutta, Anupama, G. C., *Ashok, N. M.,*Banerjee, D. P. K., 2013, ATel, 5376, 1 Lowradio frequency observation of Nova Delphini2013.

*Prasun Dutta, *Kantharia, N. G., *Roy, N.,Anupama, G. C.,*Ashok, N. M., *Banerjee,D. P. K., 2013, ATel, 5375, 1 Limits on non-thermal radio emission from Nova Cephei2013.

Sahu, D. K., 2014, GCN 16272, 1S GRB140423A: HCT optical observations.

Srivastav, S., Anupama, G. C., Sahu, D. K.,Kuppuswamy, K., 2013, ATel 4979, 1S Spec-troscopic classification of PSN J18250198+2731537.

Srivastav, S., Chakradhari, N. K., Sahu, D.K., Anupama, G. C., 2013, ATel 5105, 1SSpectroscopic classification of PSN J11430127+2357016 in UGC 6681 and PSN J16412717+5747050 in NGC 6211.

Srivastav, S., *Ninan, J. P., Anupama, G. C.,Sahu, D. K., *Ojha D. K.,. 2014, ATel, 5876,1 Optical and NIR observations of SN 2014J.

Chapter 4

INSTRUMENTS AND FACILITIES

4.1 Systems Engineering

Group

The Systems Engineering Group was recentlyformed in order to provide a coordinated sup-port in several engineering disciplines likeElectronics, Mechanical, Optics and Soft-ware in Instrumental Development, Main-tenance and Facility Management Aspects.The Electrical and Civil groups also pro-vide infrastructural development and main-tenance support both at Bangalore as wellas other field stations. The major activitiesin which the group was involved in the cur-rent year include: 1. The Aluminization ofthe Primary mirror at VBT as well as severalmirrors from Kodaikanal tunnel and other fa-cilities. 2. Support for major projects of IIAlike UVIT, Aditya and HESP. 3. Lab test-ing of the Two Channel photometer with aview to commission the instrument at oneof the telescopes at VBO, possibly on the1 meter Telescope. 4. Performance testingof control system for 30 inch for position-ing, tracking and guiding. 5. Commence-ment of the building activities of Raman Sci-ence Centre at Leh. There are also severalimportant initiatives planned in the comingyear like aluminization of secondary mirror ofVBT and HCT primary mirrors, a civil struc-ture at CREST for TMT mirror polishing,installation and commissioning of H-alphatelescopes at Kodaikanal and other projects;

some of which were kept pending for quitesometime.

(A. V. Ananth)

4.2 Photonics Laboratory

Adaptive Optics Experimentation Studies onan efficient and faster wavefront reconstruc-tion method is being continued. Exploringwavefront sensing on extended objects hasbeen taken up.

(J. P. Lancelot & Narsi Reddy*)

Vacuum Coating

2.8 m and 1.6 m Coating Plant at VBO,Kavalur: Apart from periodic maintenancework at the 1.6 m and 2.8 m vacuum coat-ing plants, aluminization work for the pri-mary mirror of the Vainu Bappu Telescope,the primary mirror of the 30 inch telescope,7 numbers of Kodaikanal tunnel mirrors and7 numbers of coelostat mirrors are done

2.5 m Coating plant at IAO, Hanle:As part of the award of the annual main-tenance contract to HHV, optics personnelwere sent along with HHV engineers to assessthe present condition of the plant. The AMChas been awarded to HHV and the sparesfor the plant have been ordered. Prepara-tions are on to take up the work on the re-

56


aluminization of the HCT primary mirror.

(Nirmalkumar, Gopinath, Tse Wang &J. P. Lancelot)

4.3 Electronics Laboratory

Development of CCD camera

A CCD camera for the thirty inch telescopeis getting ready with the DEWAR and theinternal electronics being integrated with thecontroller. The liquid nitrogen DEWAR is acentre filling one with a capacity of 1.5 litreshas a holding time in normal mode of about24 hrs and about 12 hrs in inverted mode.The DEWAR with all internal boards andwiring is being tested for its performance.The temperature monitoring unit designedearlier is already tested and the dewar ismounted with AD590 as well as PT-100 tem-perature sensors and can monitor tempera-tures on the surface of cold finger.

(A. V. Ananth, M. R. Somashekar, K. Sagayanathan, K. Anupama & V. Arumugam)

4.4 OBSERVATORIES

4.4.1 Indian Astronomical Ob-servatory

2m Himalayan Chandra Telescope

The 2mHimalayan Chandra Telescope (HCT)completed 11 years of utilization throughcompetitive time allocation. In the threeobserving cycles for the year, 18 propos-als were received for the 2013-Cycle2 (2013May–August), 28 proposals for the cycle 2013-Cycle3 (2013 September–December) and 30proposals for the cycle 2014-Cycle1 (2014January–April). The telescope time was oversubscribed by a factor 2 on an average, while

the dark moon period was over subscribed bya factor 2.5-3. HCT proposals cover a widerange of scientific problems, from the obser-vations of nearby solar system objects to thedistant quasars.

JHKs colour-composite image of the supernovaSN 2014J in the nearby galaxy M82 (J: blue; H:green; Ks: red) obtained with the TIRSPEC.The field-of-view is 5 arcmin x 5 arcmin. Northis up, and east is to the left.

The HCT was equipped with a new NIRinstrument, the TIFR Near Infrared Spec-trometer and Imager (TIRSPEC) developedby TIFR in collaboration with Mauna KeaInfrared (Hawaii). The detector array inthe instrument is 1024x1024 Hawaii-1 array.With a 0.3 arcsec per pixel resolution, the in-strument provides a Field of View (FoV) of307 x 307 arcsec2 in the imaging mode. In theSpectroscopic mode, a wavelength coveragefrom 1 micron to 2.5 micron with resolutionof 1200 is available. Apart from the singleorder mode to cover 1.02-1.20 micron, 1.21-1.48 micron, 1.49-1.78 micron and 2.04-2.35micron, cross disperse modes are also avail-able to provide simultaneous wavelength cov-erage of 1.02-1.49 micron and also 1.50-2.45micron.


TIRSPEC mounted on the 2m HCT.

The installation of this instrument at HCTwas carried out by TIFR engineers with thehelp of IAO team during 2013 August–September.After a period of performance verification,the instrument was released for regular ob-servations during January 2014. TIRSPECreplaces the NIR instrument that was avail-able with the HCT.

The high resolution echelle spectrograph(HESP) is expected to be commissioned shortly.The preparatory work for its installation iscontinuing - the outer enclosure for housingthe spectrograph in the pier area of the HCTwas installed in November 2012, and temper-ature instability inside the enclosure is beingmonitored continuously.

The preventive maintenance of the tele-scope is carried out every month around fullmoon, which minimizes the downtime of thetelescope during allotted nights. Various cal-ibration and checks are done periodically to

keep the performance of the telescope at itsoptimum level. In addition, annual mainte-nance was undertaken during the second fort-night of September 2013. The maintenanceof the telescope, its backend instrument anddome assembly was carried out by the engi-neers and technical staff of IAO. Scientistsfrom IIA associated with the operations ofthe telescope also participated in this activ-ity.

Auxiliary Infrastructure at IAO

The power requirement of the Observatoryis met by Solar Photo-Voltaic electric power,and the existing battery banks are continu-ously monitored for their efficiency.

An upgrade of the hardware for the dedi-cated satellite-based communication link be-tween IAO and the CREST campus of IIAused for remote operations of the 2m HCTwas undertaken. The new hardware includeComtech MODEMS (1:1 Standby setup), LPOD(with 1:1 Hot Redundant System) and LNB(with 1:1 Hot Redundant System). DuringApril-May 2013, the shifting of the link fromthe existing old and ageing DAMA hard-ware onto the New COMTECH modem andLPOD was implemented successfully at boththe ends, in a phased manner. The transi-tion included permanent installation of theindoor (modem) and outdoor units (LPODand LNB) with proper cabling and electri-cal connections, with all possible safeguards,and configuring them. The RF cable was re-placed with new low loss Belden RF cableand its length was shortened to minimize theloss at both ends. After various tests andoptimizations with Carrier in Carrier and IPSubMux, the satellite link with new equip-ment is working satisfactorily with improvedlink latency. This activity was undertakenby the engineers at IAO and CREST. An ad-ditional bandwidth of 3 MHz+1.5 MHz has


also been allotted for satellite communica-tion, which is awaiting clearances from theconcerned authorities.

Gamma-Ray Facilities at IAO

The High Altitude Gamma Ray (HAGAR)facility is operated jointly by the IIA andTata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR),Mumbai. The telescope has been in contin-uous use since 2007 for observations of ac-tive galactic nuclei, supernova remnants andgamma-ray emitting binary stars. The firstPh.D. thesis utilizing HAGAR data was com-pleted by Mr Amit Shukla, IIA, during thecurrent this year.

Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC),Mumbai plans to install a 21-m imaging At-mospheric Cerenkov telescope Major Atmo-spheric Cerenkov Experiment (MACE) nearHAGAR. Telescope control room, azimuthtrack, communication and power facilitiesare completed for installation of the tele-scope. Presently the complete telescope sys-tem is in its final stage of proof testingat Electronics Corporation of India Limited,Hyderabad. It is planned to be dismantledand shipped to IAO, Hanle later during thesummer months of 2014.

NLOT Site Characterization Activity

The MASS-DIMM turbulence profiler acquiredfrom TMT, USA is to be mounted on theMeade telescope that currently has the auto-mated seeing monitor mounted. Since themount+drive of the telescope is not verystiff, the results are unreliable beyond thewind speed of 4m/s. Therefore, the designand development of a sturdy Equatorial ForkMount for the telescope has been initiated.

An automated lunar scintillometer devel-

oped at IIA, as an M.Tech project, has beensuccessfully tested and installed at IAO, Hanle.

Earth Sciences

IIA has established two GPS stations at Lehand Hanle as a part of the National GPSNetwork. Initially it was funded by Depart-ment of Science and Technology, Governmentof India and later transferred to the Min-istry of Earth Sciences with a view to con-nect all the national GPS stations to In-dian National Centre for Ocean InformationService(INCOIS), Hyderabad. INCOIS hasinstalled the VSAT communication equip-ments at Hanle to facilitate Hanle direct candownload of data. VSAT equipment for theLeh GPS has reached Leh and is to be in-stalled.

Space Physics Laboratories, VSSC/ISROand IIA have collaboratively established anAerosol Observatory at Hanle. The instru-ments are working well and data is being sentto SPL, Trivandrum.

Continuous carbon dioxide analyzer, PI-CARRO is working fine at IAO, Hanle insidethe CARIBOU building, as a part of CarbonDioxide Observatory operated by IIA, Centrefor Mathematical Modeling and ComputerSimulation (CMMACS), Bangalore and Lab-oratoire des Sciences du Climat et del’Environment (LSCE), France. This ana-lyzer monitors carbon dioxide concentrationof the ambient air in addition to molecu-lar concentrations of Methane and WaterVapour in the ambient air. Manual samplingof ambient air is continuing with filling of 1litre glass flasks periodically for subsequentdetailed analysis at LSCE, France. The datais being submitted to C-MMACS.

(G. C. Anupama)


4.4.2 Centre for Research & Ed-

ucation in Science & Tech-nology (CREST)

CREST Campus of IIA houses the remotecontrol station of 2-m HCT, IAO, Hanle.Guest Observers who are allotted time onHCT by the national time allocation com-mittee, utilize this time from CREST withthe help of a small group of astronomers sup-ported by research or telescope trainees re-cruited periodically on a contract basis. Dur-ing this year 3 (Three) nos. of Telescopetrainees were appointed on contractual ba-sis.

(G. C. Anupama)

4.4.3 Kodaikanal Observatory

The Kodaikanal digitized images are nowarchived in the IIA data centre. The archivehosts 41,000 images of the Ca-K spectroheli-ograms as observed over a period from 1904to 2007. The first results from these Ca-Kdigitized images have been published. Thearchive also hosts white light images 1904-till date (44000 plates). H-alpha spectroheli-ograms taken over 1904–1999 (38000 plates)have recently been digitized and archived.The calibration process is underway. TheCa-K spectroheliograms taken at the Ko-daikanal Solar Observatory during 1904–2007and digitized with 4k x 4k CCD have higherresolution ( 0.86 arcsec) than the other avail-able historical data sets.

(S. P. Bagare et al.)

A full disk solar imaging telescope WARM(White light Active Region Monitor), hasbeen designed and developed in-house to fa-cilitate long-term data products to the so-lar community. A two-mirror coelostat feedssunlight to the WARM. An achromat with

an effective aperture of 148 mm is used toimage the Sun. The f/24 beam produces theSun’s image of 33 mm in diameter. A non-polarizing beam splitter diverts the converg-ing beam into two independent channels. Ineach channel secondary optical componentsare used to reimage the full disk on to twoindividual detectors. In the first channel aPCO2000 CCD is used to image the Sunin 430.5 nm with a pass band of 0.8 nm.In the second channel ANDOR iXON 888CCD is used with a red filter centered at630.25 nm. Both the CCDs are mounted onxyzq stages for focus, tilt and position ad-justments. WARM is equipped with an op-tical bread board on to which the dual chan-nel imaging system is set up. This set-upcan serve as a test bed for the four-channelbroad band imaging system planned for theproposed NLST and as a laboratory too forthe development of back-end instruments.

Dual channel imaging system at WARM tele-scope. PCO2000 and ANDOR iXON 888 modelCCDs are used to image the Sun in G-band (passband=8A) and narrow band (pass band = 4.5A) red filter respectively.

(Hemanth Pruthvi*, K. B. Ramesh, N. Vas-anthraju* & Technical Team)


4.4.4 Vainu Bappu Observatory

The 1.3 meter telescope had been installed inFebruary–March 2013, but oscillations wereseen in some positions due to problems iden-tified with the hydrostatic bearing pads. Thevendor M/s DFM Engineering replaced thethrust pads of the south horseshoe bearingin May. Further problems of tripping of thedrives, attributed to components of the elec-tronics system, were solved in consultationwith DFM over the next few months. In par-allel, the dome drives and wheel assemblieswere readjusted over a period of months toreduce vibrations. The solar power shutterdrives were also tested and improved. Thesolar power system is being modified to alsodrive the electrically operated windows inthe dome. Leakages noticed in the domeduring the monsoon months were also rec-tified. The final acceptance testing of thetelescope was completed in December 2013.A CCD detector of 2K X 4K pixels availableat the VBO was mounted on one port forimaging using available filters. The smaller,fast ProEM 1024 detector used for telescopetracking tests was shifted to the side port ofthe instrument unit. Observations for testingand calibration of the system with standardstars spanning a range of brightness werestarted with both the detectors. Some sci-entific programs were also carried out.

(A. K. Pati & team)

Re-aluminization of 30 inch telescope pri-mary mirror and re-installing the aluminizedmirror in the telescope was completed. Bal-ancing of the telescope was verified. In themeantime, the radial support system devel-oped problems and the telescope trackingtests had to be deferred. Efforts are onto modify the support system and have thenew radial support fabricated and installedin the mirror cell to prevent tilt of the mirror.Tracking performance check of the telescope

can be resumed once the new unit is place.

(P. U. Kamath, V. K. Subramaniam andteam)

Design, detail engineering, manufactureand assembly of “Imager” for testing the1.3 m telescope to check the image qual-ity and field of view of the telescope hasbeen completed. This instrument can alsobe mounted on other telescopes at VBO forsimilar checks.

The testing and preparation of mechanicalsystems for the aluminizing of the primaryof the VBT was carried out prior to carryingout the work. Further, the removal of thePrimary mirror from the telescope, aluminiz-ing and re-installing the aluminized mirror inthe telescope was done. Aluminizing of thesecondary mirror is being planned.

Design, detail engineering, manufacture,inspection and interface check of “VBT fiberoptic Launching Unit” was done. The unitholds the fiber optic cable on the top flangeand houses beam splitter, Collimating Lens,Reflecting mirror and the ISIS3 CCD in thehousing. This unit will soon be installed onthe prime focus end of the telescope.

Preparation of RFP document for refur-bishment of VBT dome busbar system wasdone in consultation with engineers at VBOKavalur. Preparation of required drawingfor this purpose and discussion with origi-nal vendor to check the feasibility of takingup the job has been completed. Design anddetail engineering of VBT Dome ventilationfan structure and the layout has been com-pleted. Fabrication of fan structure is beingdone at the workshop at VBO, Kavalur.

(P. U. Kamath, P. M. M. Kemkar, V. K.Subramaniam and team)

Multi-band photo-polarimeter

The multi-band photo-polarimeter, which


Multi-band photo-polarimeter.

was under development, was completely dis-mantled and re-assembled after cleaning allthe parts. The pulse counters were testedusing laboratory signal generators and theirperformance was found to be satisfactory.All the macros developed for the PIC mi-crocontrollers, which performs all the time-critical functions of the polarimeter, werechecked, and the necessary modifications weremade. The communication link between theelectronic interface and the Linux machineused for the operation of the polarimeter wasalso thoroughly tested, and the stability ofthe link was found to be extremely good. Theinstrument has three photomultiplier tubesfor the simultaneous recording of the signalin three spectral bands; two uncooled PMTsfor the ultraviolet and blue region of thespectrum and a cooled PMT for the visualand red region. The dark counts from allthe three PMTs were monitored for several

days for their stability. All the optical com-ponents of the polarimeters, including thedichroic and glass filters, were mounted in-side the polarimeter, and the alignment ofthe components were checked using a laserbeam. Preparations were made for a thor-ough testing of the instrument as whole be-fore taking it to Kavalur for field trials. Ar-rangements were made for obtaining a fiber-linked f/13 optics combination to test thedata acquisition and analysis program usingan artificial white light source in the labora-tory. The results were found to be satisfac-tory. It is planned to take it to Kavalur soonto mount it onto the 1-m Carl Zeiss telescopeand observe standard polarized and unpolar-ized stars for assessing its actual performanceat the site.

(G. Srinivasulu, S. Muneer, K. Jayakumar,M. R. Somashekar, K. Sagayanathan & S.Ramamoorthy)

4.4.5 GauribidanurObservatory

Gauribidanur RAdio Spectro-Polarimeter (GRASP)

A new set-up for ground based spectropolari-metric observations of the solar radio tran-sients in the frequency range 35-85 MHzhas been recently commissioned at the Gau-ribidanur radio observatory. The front-endof the GRASP consists of two log-periodicdipoles (LPDs) designed and fabricated in-house at the observatory. While the orienta-tion of the rms in one of the LPDs is in theeast-west direction, they are in the north-south direction for the other. After filter-ing and amplification, the radio frequency(RF) outputs from the individual LPDs aretransmitted to the receiver room via two sep-arate optic fiber cables buried 2 m below


the ground level. They are connected to thethe inputs of a broadband four-port phasequadrature hybrid network. The latter hastwo outputs: one of them responds to the leftcircular polarization (LCP) and the other tothe right circular polarization (RCP) com-ponents of the incident signal. The outputsof the hybrid are connected to two indepen-dent commercial spectrum analyzers to ob-tain the respective dynamic spectra. Thesweep time and the instantaneous observingbandwidth are 100 ms and 250 kHz, re-spectively. The spectrum analyzers are in-terfaced to two personal computers (PCs) us-ing standard GPIB interface. The computersare synchronized with a common GPS clock.This helps to achieve temporal coherence be-tween the data acquired with the two sys-tems. The total intensity (Stokes I) of theemission at each frequency is estimated of-fline by adding the observed amplitudes atthe corresponding frequency in the aforemen-tioned two spectra. The difference betweenthe two amplitudes gives the circularly po-larized intensity (Stokes V). The ratio of theabove two gives the degree of circular po-larization (dcp). Calibration tests indicatethat the cross-talk between the two outputsof the hybrid is < -40 dB, and the quadra-ture phase shift in the hybrid is consistentto an accuracy of 5 degrees in the abovefrequency range. The gain of the two LP-DAs, the associated filter, amplifiers, opticfibre cable network were also nearly equalindicating that randomly polarized incidentsignal will result in outputs of equal ampli-tude in the two spectrum analyzers. Thesource region of the transient were identifiedusing the two-dimensional images obtainedsimultaneously with the Gauribidanur RA-dioheliograPH (GRAPH). Presently work isunder progress on a FPGA-based digital re-ceiver system for data acquisition with multi-bit resolution. This is expected to improvethe sensitivity, dynamic range, temporal and

spectral resolution.

Time profile of the type III solar radio burstobserved with the GRASP on 2013 February 4at a typical frequency of 80 MHz. The upper andlower panels correspond to the LCP and RCP,respectively.

Gauribidanur RAdioheliograPH(GRAPH)

Signal from the 64 antenna groups in theGRAPH, spread over a distance of 3 km,array are presently correlated in the bandaveraged mode using a 4096-channel corre-lator system comprising of discrete digitalcircuit elements. As a part of the augmen-tation of the GRAPH, a FPGA based dig-ital backend system is being developed in-house at the Gauribidanur observatory. Tothis date, a prototype 8-channel system hasbeen designed and fabricated. All possiblecorrelations between signals from the differ-ent antenna groups can be performed withthis system, either online or offline. A cus-tom double side band (DSB) IP Core wasdesigned using Verilog. Each IP comprisesof a complex correlator unit contains sev-eral X-OR, X-NOR, latch, integration, andmultiplexer circuits. The output from theFPGA is transmitted to the computer viaa Gigabit ethernet cable. Ethernet MediaAccess Controller (MAC) takes care of theethernet framing protocols and error detec-


Interference fringes obtained during the merid-ian transit observations of Cassiopeia-A on along baseline (upper panel) and short baseline(lower panel) in the GRAPH in the offline cor-relation mode.

tion of the frames. The FPGA chip usedis Virtex-5 which has an on-chip EmbeddedTri-mode Ethernet MAC (TEMAC). It in-terfaces with a PHYsical Layer (PHY) chip(Marvell 88E1111) which is a line-driver fordriving and sensing the ethernet cable fordata transmission. In order to handle morenumber of inputs and frequency channels thepacket correlator is used. With this setup,the raw voltages are sampled and filled intoa First-In-First-Out (FIFO) unit. From theFIFO, the data are read and transmitted viaGigabit ethernet port using the TEMAC. Acustomized network frame structure is usedto carry out the above set of tasks. On thecomputer side, the Wireshark is used to de-bug the frames. Using TCPDUMP, the rawvoltages are dumped to the harddisk for of-fline analysis. Using LabVIEW, the individ-ual channel data are extracted and the crosspower spectra are obtained. Presently they

are working on handling the data slips us-ing Lossless Gigabit Remote Packet Capture(GULP) with Linux.

(Radio Astronomy Group)

4.5 Library

IIA library strengthened its collections byadding 304 books in print as well as contin-uing the e-books access to SPIE Digital Li-brary along with SPIE E-books, ASP Confer-ence series and EAS publication series. Theonline access to “Encyclopaedia of Astron-omy & Astrophysics” has been added dur-ing this year. IIA library continues to be amember of NKRC consortium and e-journalsaccess facility is there with 19 major publish-ers. This year “Nature Geoscience addition-ally has been added.

Document Delivery Services continue: Twentyseven interlibrary loan requests from IIA fac-ulty and students were fulfilled as they arenot there in the IIA collections. More than55 requests from other libraries and individ-uals were catered to from our collections aspart of the document delivery service. OpenAccess Repository:IIA library is maintainingits open access repository by adding new andold research publications of IIA dynamically.IIA library has celebrated the Open AccessWeek during October 21–27, 2013 by cre-ating and distributing the poster on “Con-necting the Past with the Present throughOpen Access–IIA Archives” within the cam-puses of IIA. Founders Day: The library dis-played exhibits of M. K. V. Bappu on theFounders day, 10th August, 2013 and pre-pared a brochure “Vainu Bappu, the versa-tile Astronomer (1927–1982)” which was dis-tributed. Archives: The archival materialhas been widely used for research purposesnationally and internationally by Nehru Plan-etarium, Nehru Centre, ISRO, Kerala State


Science & Technology Museum, Trivandrum.The historical contents which is accessiblethrough IIA Open Access Repository has at-tracted a visual Swedish artist Conny Karls-son Lundgren, who has used some of the con-tents from IIA archives on Isis Pogson, thedaughter of N. R. Pogson for an art exhibi-tion at Sweden. http://www.connykarlsson.se/87-Sylvia. Bibliometric Anal-ysis: IIA library has given substantial in-put to Annual Report & DST Report bysubmitting scientometric analysis of IIA re-

search publications. NKRC meeting: IIAlibrary hosted the National Knowledge Re-source Consortium (NKRC) Nodal Officersmeet 2013 at Kodaikanal Observatory, IIA,Kodaikanal during June 5–7, 2013 and it waswell received by 60 participants from CSIRand DST members. Christina Birdie, B. S.Mohan and P. Prabahar presented an anal-ysis of the “Trend in IIA Research Output;link to NKRC Resources” during the NKRCmeeting held at IIA, Kodaikanal.

(Librarian)

Chapter 5

UPCOMING FACILITIES

5.1 Thirty Meter Telescope

Two prototype actuators under test at ITCClaboratory.

In the academic year 2013–2014, the TMTproject reached some key milestones. On 24July, 2013 at the meeting of the board ofDirectors at Hawaii, USA, the scientific au-thorities of the respective partner countriesexecuted the master agreement, agreeing forbasic governing principles of the partnership,contributions, observing time etc. With theconsent of the Department of Science andTechnology, Govt. of India, Dr. P. Sreeku-mar, Director, IIA, signed the master agree-ment, representing India TMT. Prof. EswarReddy represented India TMT, in person, atthe signing ceremony.

ITCC organized a National Workshop onTMT science and instrumentation in Novem-ber 2013 at IIA, Bangalore, which was at-

tended by members from various researchinstitutes and universities. This NationalWorkshop was followed by an InternationalWorkshop, held at IIA, Bangalore in Jan-uary 2013. Members from industries as-sociated with India TMT, IISc, ISRO andTMT projects in Canada and the USA wereamongst the participants. Important out-come of this meeting was firming up of IndiaTMTs interest in the participation of firstlight instruments, and laying of the roadmapfor collaboration in instrumentation. As aresult of this meeting, India is now partici-pating in 6 mini-studies related to the opto-mechanical design of the optical first light in-strument Multi Object Imager and Echellete(MOBIE). India TMT is leading the studyof estimating the telescope and AO systempolarimetric budget to understand the fea-sibility of the TMT for polarimetric obser-vations. India TMT is also developing theNear-Infrared guide star catalogue for TMTadaptive Optics (AO) observations. Othermajor activity is completing of prototype de-velopment of India

TMT in-kind work packages: Edge sen-sors, actuators, segment support assembly,segment polishing, design and developmentof mirror coating systems, observatory soft-ware. Sensors and Actuator prototype de-velopment have been completed and havepassed all the technical tests conducted atJet Propulsion Lab (JPL). Work on SSAs

66


Group photo of participants at TMT workshop at IIA, Bangalore

is being done at Godrej, Mumbai and ATL,Bangalore. Assembly of 6 SSAs are ex-pected to be completed by end of 2014. Toefficiently manage and complete the IndiaTMT share of observatory software which in-cludes telescope control system software, In-dia TMT signed an MOU with CDAC. Un-der the MOU, India TMT may off-load someof the works to CDAS. Another key workpackage is polishing of about 100 segmentsof size 1.44-m diameter each. India TMT isin the process of choosing a technology part-ner to train and build stress mirror polishingmachines and set up a plant at IIA CRESTcampus.

(B. Eswar Reddy, For India TMT Group)

5.2 ADITYA 1

Visible Emission Line Coronagraph

Visible Emission Line Coronagraph (VELC)payload onboard Aditya(L1) is an enhancedversion of VELC on Aditya-1. It is an inter-nally occulted solar coronagraph with simul-taneous imaging, spectroscopy and spectro-

polarimetry channels. The primary sciencegoals include, but not limited to, Diagnos-tics of the coronal and coronal loops plasma(Temperature, Velocity & Density), Heat-ing of the corona, Development, dynamics &origin of CME’s, Studies on the drivers forspace weather and Measurement of coronalmagnetic fields in the corona (not plannedby any mission so far). VELC is designedto image solar corona from ± 1.05 R⊙ to± 3 R⊙ (R⊙ is solar radius) with a platescale of 2.5”/pixel. It has multi-slit spec-troscopic channels at three emission linesnamely 530.3nm, 789.2nm and 1074.7nm withspectral resolution of 65A, 95A and 150A re-spectively. It is also capable of carrying outdual-beam spectro-polarimetry at 1074.7nm.FOV for spectroscopy and spectro-polarimetryis from±1.05Ro to±1.5Ro. This project wasapproved by ADCOS, ISRO on 11-10-2013.

Optical design: VELC has an entranceaperture of 150mm and an off-axis parabolaas a primary mirror (M1). M2 is a sphericalmirror with a central hole acts as internaloccultor. M3 rejects the solar disc light outof the instrument. A dichroic beam split-ter (DBS1) splits the coronal light into animaging channel at 500nm (Continuum) and


Scatter distribution at the focal plane of contin-uum channel.

to a spectroscopy channel >500nm. Spec-trograph in VELC operates in near littrowconfiguration uses a plane reflective gratingwith 600 grooves/mm blazed at 42O as a dis-persive element. A four element littrow lensacts as collimator and camera of the spec-trograph. Optical design of the payload isoptimized to meet science requirements. Tol-erance analysis is carried out and fabricationand alignment tolerances are generated foroptics. Thermal and ghost image analysisare also carried out on the finalized design.VELC payload alignment and performanceevaluation schemes are being worked out.Experiments are being designed for calibra-tions of various narrow band filters, dichroicbeam splitters and diffraction gratings etc.

Mechanical design: The overall instru-ment configuration is worked out, most of thecomponent level designs are completed. Baseline Design review is completed (BDR) for allsubsystems including mechanical structure.The preliminary thermal and structural anal-ysis is completed. The static, dynamic andthermal distortion analysis is carried out, thefirst global resonant frequency is close to 100Hz which is acceptable. The maximum stressresulting in the structure at 100Hz is withinthe acceptable limits. This confirms thatthe mechanical configuration/design meetsthe specific requirements and instrument de-signed is stiff and strong to withstand dy-

namic loads. The technical specification andengineering drawings are being generated,procurement of long lead items like Tita-nium material etc are under progress. Equip-ment/instruments for up gradation of cleanrooms are under progress.

There was remarkable progress and con-siderable effort and time was given towardsselection of detector, configuring electronicsinterface, mechanical interface, thermal in-terface, optimizing camera electronics, on-board data processing schemes etc. Hence,it has been decided to retain 2K x 2K Sci-entific CMOS detector with 6.5 m pixel sizeas the visible detector for present VELC also.NIR channel for wavelength around 1 m is in-cluded in present VELC to achieve better sci-entific goals. For this channel, InGaAs (In-dium Gallium Arsenide, 512 x 640array with24m pixel size) is most suitable detector ma-terial when cryogenic cooling is not afford-able. Contamination control: To meet thestringent requirement of particulate contam-ination levels, the present Class 100 Cleanroom facility in Prof. MGK Menon Labwill be upgraded to class 10 facility. A de-tailed up-gradation plan has been preparedand presented to various committees for ap-proval. The design work for this activity iscompleted and we are in the process of pro-curement of related equipments and instru-ments. To measure the scatter of the mirrorcoupons a small scatterometer facility is de-signed and is being fabricated. A new par-ticle fall-out meter is planned for monitor-ing the surface contamination and airbornecontamination levels. To meet the requiredlow RH levels of the project two numbers ofdesiccant type industrial de-humidifiers havebeen procured and will be installed soon.Aero-glaze paint has been qualified for quot-ing the optical bread-board, baffles etc. ofVELC. The standing review committee onscatter and contamination related issues dis-


cussed details of contamination control re-quirements and the measurement processeson 22 July 2014.

(VELC Team)

5.3 National Large Solar

Telescope

India’s National Large Solar Telescope (NLST)of two meter aperture size is proposed to beset up in Ladakh region of Himalayas at aheight of around 4300 meters. A high res-olution spectrograph along with a polarime-ter is planned as one of the backend instru-ments for NLST. Prototype development ofthe NLST Spectro-Polarimeter (SP) is pro-posed to be designed and developed for us-age at the back focal plane of the Multi-Application Solar Telescope (MAST) recentlyinstalled at the Udaipur Solar Observatory.Design of the prototype SP has been dis-cussed in detail along with the scientific goals.The SP is designed to be operated in threewavelengths to observe photospheric and chro-mospheric layers of the solar atmosphere si-multaneously. Vector magnetic fields will becalculated in these layers. High resolutionof the designed SP will provide accurate es-timates of velocities. Highly resolved polar-ized line profiles will allow the user to ob-tain the height variation of vector magneticfields when used along with suitable inversioncodes.

(NLST Team)

Further to the detailed site survey report of2011-12, observations were continued at thePangong lake site Merak using automatedweather station, all-sky camera, and sky ra-diometer. At the station Hanle, only the au-tomated weather station observations werecontinued. However, observations for thesite program at Devasthal in Uttarakhand

were discontinued during the year. Detailedstudies of the aerosol optical properties andsky transparency, along with sky brightnessestimates, were carried out for Hanle andMerak stations. The results pertaining toaerosol optical properties are reported sep-arately. The sky brightness estimates for ex-tended durations show that both Hanle andMerak are well suited for coronagraphic ob-servations. Extensive analysis of the meteo-rological parameters and the dependence ofseeing under varying met conditions were ini-tiated. Archiving of the extensive data wasalso carried out during the year.

(S. P. Bagare, Rajendra B. Singh, NamgyalDorjey, Angchuk Dorje, Dorjai Tsewang, &Stanzin Tundup)

Observations using sky radiometer model PM01L by Prede of Japan, were continued atMerak and Hanle in Ladakh to monitor theaerosol content over the region. The in-strument measures sun/sky irradiance at fivewavelengths in the visible and Near IR re-gions. The data were processed using version4.2 of Skyrad. Pack software to obtain theaerosol optical properties. Calibration andevaluation of the performance of the instru-ment were carried out using in-situ data dur-ing clear sky conditions for the years 2008–2011 for Hanle and 2012 for Merak. Theuncertainties of the estimated aerosol opti-cal depth (AOD) and single scattering albedo(SSA) at the five observed wavelengths arewithin 0.02, and 0.2 respectively, with refer-ence to an air mass of 1. These results in-dicate the high quality of the data obtainedand the stability of the instrument used. TheAOD and SSA results are presented in Fig-ure 1. The two stations therefore display thepristine conditions of the high-altitude sites.They have high sky transparency, compara-ble to those of sites at Mauna Loa (3400 mamsl) in the Pacific Ocean and Dome C in


Antarctica. Also, the above results indicatethat these sites are ideal for calibration ofradiometers, similar to the station MaunaLoa where CIMEL radiometers of NASA’sAERONET program are usually calibrated.

(S. P. Bagare, Shantikumar S. Ningombam,Rajendra B. Singh, Namgyal Dorjey, & StanzinTundup)

5.4 Ultra-Violet Imaging

Telescope (UVIT)

UVIT is one of the five science payloadson ASTROSAT, the first Indian satellite de-voted fully to astronomy, which is to belaunched in the year 2014. ASTROSAThas four X-ray telescopes, which observe insoft/hard X-rays, and UVIT observes in ul-traviolet and visible bands. Three of the X-ray telescopes and UVIT can observe an ob-ject simultaneously. The instrument is con-figured as two similar Cassegrain telescopesof 375 mm diameter. One of the two tele-scopes observes in FarUV (1300–1800 A),while the other observes in NearUV(2000–3000 A) and VIS (3200–5500 A). Images aremade simultaneously in all the three channelswith an angular resolution of 1.8 arcsec in afield of 28 arcmin. In addition to a selectionof filters for each of the three channels, lowresolution (100) slitless spectroscopy is avail-able for FarUV and NearUV channels. AS-TROSAT aims to observe simultaneously inX-rays, UV and visible. UVIT would be usedto study time variability of X-ray objects, ontime scales ranging from seconds to days, incoordination with the X-ray telescopes, andwould observe on its own objects like inter-acting galaxies, star forming galaxies, globu-lar clusters, hot/evolved stars.

The vibration test of flight model test wascompleted last year, upon the post vibrationtests it was found that except the VIS chan-

nel of the telescope, performance of rest allthe subsystems were satisfactory. Upon diag-nosis, it was found that star 250 sensor gotde-bonded from its ceramic die. Presentlydetector of VIS channel is under repair byCSA in Canada. As a backup plan develop-ment of new detector for the VIS channel isunder way in collaboration with the centersof ISRO. Unlike the original detector it wouldnot be an intensified-imager, but would servethe important purpose of tracking drift of thesatellites pointing with an accuracy of 0.2arcseconds on time scale of seconds.

Several proposals for observations duringthe initial period of the mission are in thefinal stages of discussions. These propos-als would be part of a set called “BaselineScience Proposals FOR ASTROSAT” andwould showcase the science which can bedone with ASTROSAT.

(UVIT Team)

5.5 High Resolution Spec-

trometer for HCT

A high resolution spectrometer for the 2mHimalayan Chandra Telescope (HCT) at In-dian Astronomical Observatory (IAO) Hanleproviding high resolution R ∼ 60,000 with anoptional low resolution of 30,000 in unslicedmode is being fabricated. With the chosendesign (based on white pupil concept) a con-tinuous spectral coverage over 350-1000nmon a single CCD frame would be available.The project is largely supported by DSTgrant under fast track scheme IRHPA. Itis being executed as technical collaborationwith Industrial Research Limited (IRL), NewZealand (recently renamed as Callaghan In-novation Research Limited since Feb 2013(CIRL).)

Following the completion of the optical de-


The cassegrain unit of the High Resolution Spectrograph for HCT. It comprises of fold mirror, pinholemirror, input selector and guide camera. The right figure shows the complete unit with its thermalenclosure.

sign in November 2011, the glass and mir-ror blanks and standard optical items havebeen procured. The grinding, polishing of alloptical elements was completed in Novem-ber 2013. The AR coating for lenses andprisms and HR coating for collimator, slitand folding mirror was done by L3 warriorsystems (USA) during December 2013-Jan2014. Opto-mechanical fabrication of manysystem modules including Cassegrain assem-bly, Input optics, collimator assembly, echelleassembly, slit and fold mirror assembly, cam-era assembly, CCD interface assembly andexposure meter assembly are completed. TheHESP F/2.6 camera (Petzval configuration)is designed to correct the various aberrationintroduced by the pre-optics. The perfor-mance test of the camera at Kiwistar op-tics is carried out using an interferometricsetup. The on-axis and 4 degree off- axisperformance test were made at 16 and 20oCtemperatures at the test wavelength 632nm.For on axis tests PV ranged 0.529 to 0.531waves and RMS 0.098-0.0990 waves while for4 degree off-axis PV ranged in 2.113-2.2087waves and RMS 0.283-0.298 waves. HESPCCD system consists of E2V 234-81 chip of

4K x4K format with 15 µm square pixels. Itis a back illuminated device coated with cus-tom graded AR coating. It is operated withARC GEN III controller. The CCD cryo-stat holding the CCD has a 3.6 litre capac-ity for LN2 storage which folding mirror wasdone by L3 warrior systems (USA) duringDecember 2013-Jan 2014. Opto-mechanicalfabrication of many system modules includ-ing Cassegrain assembly, Input optics, col-limator assembly, echelle assembly, slit andfold mirror assembly, camera assembly, CCDinterface assembly and exposure meter as-sembly are completed.

The HESP F/2.6 camera (Petzval config-uration) is designed to correct the variousaberration introduced by the pre-optics. Theperformance test of the camera at Kiwistaroptics is carried out using an interferomet-ric setup. The on-axis and 4 degree off- axisperformance test were made at 16 and 20oCtemperatures at the test wavelength 632nm.For on axis tests PV ranged 0.529 to 0.531waves and RMS 0.098-0.0990 waves while for4 degree off-axis PV ranged in 2.113-2.2087waves and RMS 0.283-0.298 waves.

The system modules for the HESP were


The image showing the CCD cryostat and theoption of auto-fill.

completed in April 2014. The sub-assemblytests would be conducted during May–August2014. The full system assembly tests at Ki-wistar Optics, New Zealand with IIA teamis scheduled in November 2014. The spec-trograph would be transported and commis-sioned at IAO, Hanle during May–June 2015.

(HESP Team)

Chapter 6

STUDENTS’ PROGRAMS ANDTRAINING ACTIVITIES

Student programs at the institute are carriedout by the Board of Graduate Studies. Theinstitute conducts a Ph.D. program, in col-laboration with the Pondicherry Universityand an M.Tech-Ph.D. program, in collabo-ration with the Calcutta University. Apartfrom these, the institute also trains studentsthrough short term programs such as the vis-iting students program, the summer schooland the summer project program. The high-lights of these programs are summarised be-low.

6.1 Ph.D. Degree Awarded

Sumangala Rao was awarded the Ph.D. de-gree for her thesis entitled “SpectroscopicStudies of RV Tau and Related Objects” sub-mitted to the Mangalore University. She car-ried out the work under the supervision ofSunetra Giridhar.

L. Anusha was awarded the Ph.D degree forher thesis titled “Advanced Numerical Meth-ods for Polarized Line Formation Theory”submitted to the Mangalore University.

Prashanth Mohan was awarded the Ph.D. de-gree for his thesis titled “Models of Observa-tional Signatures of Black Holes” submitted

to the Bengal Engineering and Science Uni-versity, Shibpur, West Bengal. He carriedout the work under the supervision of ArunMangalam.

Arya Dhar was awarded the Ph.D. degreefor his thesis titled “Novel Quantum Phasesin Ultracold Atoms in Optical Superlattices”submitted to the Mangalore University. Hecarried out the work under the supervision ofB. P. Das.

6.2 Ph.D. Thesis Submit-

ted

The following students have submitted theirPh.D. thesis:

K.Chandrasekhar submitted his thesis titled“Smallscale Transient Events in the SolarCorona” to the Pondicherry University, Puducherry.The research was done under the supervisionof Dipankar Banerjee.

G. Indu submitted her thesis titled “TheStructure, Kinematics and Evolution of theMagellanic Clouds” to the Pondicherry Uni-versity, Puducherry. The research was doneunder the supervision of Annapurni Subra-maniam.

73


P. Ramya submitted her thesis titled “Studyof Stellar Streams in the Galaxy” to theCalicut University, Calicut. The researchwas done under the supervision of B. EswarReddy.

6.3 Completion of M.Sc.

& M.Tech Program

The following student has completed his M.Sc.program:

V. Srinivasa Prasannaa, under the guidanceof B. P. Das submitted his thesis titled “Sin-gle Ion Clocks: Theoretical Considerations”to the School of Sciences, IGNOU, for hisM.Sc degree in Physics and Astrophysics.

The following students of the above programhave completed their M.Tech. Degree underthe IIA-CU integrated M.Tech-Ph.D. pro-gram.

Prasanna Deshmukh under the guidance ofPadmakar Singh Parihar submitted his M.Tech.thesis titled “Development of Precision Con-troller for Thirty Meter Telescope Actuator”to the University of Calcutta.

Joice Mathew under the guidance of JayantMurthy submitted his M.Tech thesis titled“Characterization of a Photon Counting De-tector and Development of an Attitude Sen-sor for High Altitude Balloon Experiments”to the University of Calcutta.

Mayuresh N. Sarpotdar under the guidanceof C. Kathiravan submitted his M.Tech thesistitled “FPGA based Digital Backend Systemfor Low Frequency Radio Observations” tothe University of Calcutta.

6.4 Visiting Internship

Program

The visiting student’s internship program isconducted by the Indian Institute of Astro-physics (IIA) with the aim to promote sci-entific research interest in college and uni-versity students. Students selected for thisprogram work on specific projects that forma part of the ongoing research at IIA. Basedon the nature of the project, the students willbe asked to work at either the main campusof IIA in Bengaluru or its field stations. Stu-dents carrying out their Ph.D. in Universi-ties, and willing to visit IIA for collaborativeresearch are also encouraged to apply for thisprogram. During 2013–2014 thirty seven stu-dents did their projects under the guidanceof the various academic staff members.

6.5 Summer Projects

School in Physics and Astrophysics

The summer school in Physics and Astro-physics, coordinated by the Board of Gradu-ate Studies, is an yearly activity of the IndianInstitute of Astrophysics (IIA). The mainaim of the school is firstly to introduce stu-dents of B.Sc, M.Sc, B.E./B.Tech. degreecourses to the field of Astronomy and As-trophysics and secondly to motivate them totake up a career in Astronomy and Astro-physics. For the year 2013, the school washeld at the Kodaikanal Observatory, during14–24 May 2013.

Twenty five students participated in theschool, of which twenty students each did ashort term project for a duration of six weeksduring June–July 2013, under the guidanceof an IIA faculty in Bengaluru. During thesecond week of July, 2013 they also made


presentations on the results of their projectwork. The program during the period 14–24 May 2013, in Kodaikanal consisted of se-ries of lectures including Physics and Astro-physics mostly by the faculties of IIA, IISc.and RRI. Lectures were delivered on the fol-lowing topics : (1) Newtonian Dynamics, (2)Sun and Heliophysics, (3) Radiative Process,(4) Solar magnetohydrodynamics, (5) Stel-lar Physics, (6) Astronomical Techniques, (7)Plasma Astrophysics, (8) Galaxies, (9) He-lio and Astro-seismology, (10) ObservationalCosmology, (11) Relativity and Cosmologyand (12) Highenergy Astrophysics.

Summer Internship Program

Some of the students who participated in theschool stayed on for another 6 weeks to doshort projects. Twenty students did theirprojects under the guidance of the variousacademic staff members of the Institute.

International Research Experience forStudents (IRES)

International Research Experience for USGraduate Students (IRES) program, spon-sored by the National Science Foundation ofUSA and administered by the National So-lar Observatory, Tucson, USA, was hosted byIIA. Under this program a few graduate stu-dents of the United States study astrophysicsin India. The program aims to expose poten-tial researchers to an international setting atan early stage in their careers. After com-pleting an initial three year period of success-ful running, this program received a positivereview and continued funding from the NSFand 2013 is the seventh year of the programat IIA. The students associate with a facultymember at IIA for a research project, andalso undertake visits to IIA’s observatoriesand field stations.

Chapter 7

PUBLIC OUTREACH ACTIVITIES

7.1 Activities at Bangalore

National Science Day

Distribution of prizes to the winner of quiz com-petition by Dr. P. Sreekumar.

National Science Day 2014 was celebratedat the Bangalore campus of the Instituteon 28 February 2014. All together 127 stu-dents from seven schools in Bangalore partic-ipated in various activities that were organ-ised. The schools which participated were,ACTS School, Christ School, Christ Academy,Seema School, Our lady of Fatima School,Government High School from Madivala andNarayana E-Techno School. The programsstarted with a drawing competition in themorning for the students. After the compe-tition, the students were taken around thecampus by student volunteers of IIA to lo-cations where various experiments and dis-

plays were setup like 1. Observing the sunthrough the telescope and coelostat. 2. Ademo of Balloon Experiment. 3. Visit tothe Photonics Laboratory. 4. Demonstra-tion of astronomical kits. 5. An exhibitionof posters and models. Later the studentsassembled at the auditorium and a quiz com-petition was conducted in which the studentsparticipated enthusiastically. Following thequiz competition, there was the prize distri-bution by the Director of IIA Dr. P. Sreeku-mar, to the winners of the drawing and quizcompetitions. First prize for the drawingcompetition was won by Versha of 9th stan-dard, Christ Academy and the second prizewent to K. P. Meghana of 9th standard, fromSeema School. The third prize was won byN. Usha of 9th standard of ACTS SecondarySchool. In the quiz competition, ACTS Sec-ondary School won the first prize and ChristAcademy was the runner-up. Evening eventsstarted with a popular talk delivered by Prof.D. C. V. Mallik , titled “K. S. Krishnan: HisLife and Work”. The science day celebrationconcluded with sky watch program arrangedat the north lawn of IIA in which a largenumber of public participated. Students andstaff of IIA volunteered and made this eventa grand success.

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Display of the paintings that won the first prizein the painting competition held at CRESTHosakote.

School children at the quiz competition con-ducted at the Bangalore campus of IIA.

IIA graduate students showing Jupiter on the12 inch Meade telescope to the school children,on National Science Day, at IIA campus, Ban-galore.

A talk session at rural residential school,Hosakere.


Going back to School: An outreach ac-tivity for school children

A group of IIA Ph.D student along withoutreach committee members has initiated abrilliant 3-4 hours outreach program named“Going Back to school for school children”.This School outreach activity is divided inthree sessions and handled by a group of IIAstudents. School children attend an hourlong session in which a presentation on as-tronomy along with video screening is ar-ranged. The second session comprises pre-sentation of Stellarium, demonstration of as-tronomical kits and telescopes. Whereas, thethird one is dedicated for the role-play, dis-cussion and interaction with the students.Thelast two sessions are held in parallel. In addi-tion to this astronomical activity kits are alsodistributed to participating students. Theprogram is being well appreciated by stu-dent as well as teachers and a large num-ber of request is received to conduct it totheir schools. So far the program has beenconducted at seven different schools in andaround Bangalore, benefiting about 800 stu-dents. At present Kannada and Englishare the preferred medium of communication,later it is also planned to have program infew other languages like, Hindi, Telugu andTamil.

7.2 Activities at Vainu

Bappu Observatory,

Kavalur

Sky Watching Program

At VBO a regular outreach activity of skywatching for the public was organised ev-ery Saturday from 7 pm to 10 pm. Dur-ing this time visitors were shown celestial

objects through the 6 inch Carl Zeiss re-flecting telescope. In addition to this, lim-ited number of visitors mostly students fromschools/colleges were permitted, on prior re-quest, to visit VBT telescope dome. Dur-ing January 2013 to March 2014, a total of2894 students from schools/colleges and 5149members of the general public visited theobservatory. Only senior school and collegegroups were shown the larger telescopes. Allvisitors were shown celestial objects throughthe 15 cm telescope on saturday evenings.Other groups that visited the observatory in-cluded a group of 40 engineers from GE Avi-ation, a group of 45 scientists and staff fromthe NAL, a group from the IIT Madras As-tronomy Club, two batches of students eachfrom the Bangalore Planetarium and fromthe MPBIFR, Bangalore.

Workshop on Astrophotography

An amateur astrophotography workshop wasconducted at Vainu Bappu Observatory, Kavaluron 1st and 2nd February 2014. Fifteen stu-dents from IIA participated in this programalong with few amateur astronomers andAstro-photographers from Bangalore andChennai. Practical sessions were conductedon 2nd Feb, 2014 by the invited guest andAstro-photographer Dr. Suresh Mohan, wherethe students were trained how to captureplanet and deep-sky images with the aid ofjust a DSLR or amateur CCDs mounted onamateur catadioptric telescopes. On the 2ndof February, 2014, presentations were givenon covering different subjects of astrophoto-graphic techniques. Hands on session wasalso conducted on how to use softwares whichare commonly used for astrophotography, es-pecially in post-processing images, includ-ing noise reduction and image enhancement.Program was well appreciated by partici-pants and it has been decided by the out-


reach committee of IIA to conduct such aworkshop on regular basis.

(Outreach Committee)

7.3 Activities at Indian As-

tronomical Observatory,

Hanle

IAO attracts many visitors, and many visitswere permitted to the extent possible by thelimited infrastructure.

7.4 Centre for Research &

Education in Science

& Technology

CREST Campus of IIA houses the remotecontrol station of 2-m HCT, IAO, Hanle.Guest Observers who are allotted time onHCT by the national time allocation com-mittee, utilize this time from CREST withthe help of a small group of astronomers sup-ported by research or telescope trainees re-cruited periodically on a contract basis. Dur-ing this year 3 (Three) nos. of Telescopetrainees were appointed on contractual ba-sis.

The HCT remote control station is a pointof attraction at CREST for scientific visitorsof IIA as well as laypersons. The centre wasvisited by many scientists, students, amateurastronomers, and educationists during theperiod. The remote operation of 2-m HCTwas demonstrated through video conferenc-ing facility to all the visitors. HCT group as-tronomers gave popular lectures. The AmitSmriti Project, Aryabhatta, Bhopal; JagdishBose Science Talent Search Program and theAstronomy Program, Birla Institute of Fun-damental Research, Bangalore had organized

visits by students to CREST.

National Science Day was celebrated atthe CREST campus on February 28, 2014.More than 100 students from various school(New Horizon School, Global Residential School,Bharath Matha School, Omshree Public schooletc.) visited the campus with their teachers.Posters in general astronomy and those high-lighting the Institute’s facilities and workdone at IIA in the field of Astronomy &Astrophysics were displayed. Drawing andquiz competitions were also held for the stu-dents. Remote operation of 2m HCT wasdemonstrated through Video Conferencingto IAO, Hanle. MGK Menon Lab activi-ties were shown through CCTVs network.These events were followed by a lecture ”Ba-sic Science and Astronomy” by B.C. Bhatt.The short movie “Cosmic collisions” was alsoshown to the students. The event was cov-ered by the local press.

One Celestron CGE Pro 1100 EdgeHDmodel 11-inch reflector telescope has beenpurchased for outreach program at CRESTCampus. This telescope was installed andcommissioned at CREST during December2013. CREST Telescope Trainees have beentrained to operate this telescope.

(G. C. Anupama)

Colloquium

19 December 2013Raymond F. BishopUniversity Manchester, UKConfronting the quantum many-body prob-lem:an overview of the coupled cluster methodsand its applications in physics

12 December 2013K. PorsezianPondicherry University, Pondicherry


Linear and nonlinear propagation effects inoptical fibers : Recent applications

28 November 2013J. SrinivasanDivecha Centre for Climate Change, IISc,BengaluruShould we be concerned about global warming?

12 November 2013Kandaswamy SubramanianIUCAA, PuneFluctuation to mean field turbulent dynamos:The search for coherence

11 June 2013R. SrianandIUCAA, PuneProbing the Universe with QSO absorptionlines

02 April 2013N. UdayashankarRaman Research Institute, BengaluruAdventures in low frequency radio astronomyand cosmology

Seminar

01 April 2014Piyali ChatterjeeHigh Altitude Observatory, USAOccurrences of fast and possibly cannibalisticcoronal mass ejections:insights from flux rope simulations

14 March 2014Masayuki YamanakaKyoto University, JapanObservational study of nearby Type Ia Super-novae with rise time

13 March 2014Koji KawabataHiroshima University, JapanSGMAP: Optical polarimetric survey projectinHiroshima

12 March 2014Nirupam RoyMax-Planck-Institute for Radio-astronomy,GermanyRadio and X-ray observations of Novae

05 March 2014Marilena MierlaRoyal Observatory of BelgiumCoronal mass ejections: detection, 3D recon-struction and propagation

04 March 2014G. ThejappaUniversity of Maryland, USASolar type III radio bursts: Non-linear wave-wave interactions

18 February 2014Jerome MartinInstitue of Astrophysics, ParisInflation after Planck

05 February 2014Shri KulkarniCaltech, Pasadena CA 91125Astronomy: This decade

31 January 2014Sultana NaharDepartment of AstronomyOhio State UniversityAbundances and opacities of the Sun

30 January 2014Matthias Bartelmann


Heidelberg University, GermanyThe internal structure of galaxy clusters

20 January 2014Herman MarshallMIT, USAAstrophysics with a Soft X-ray polarimeter

16 January 2014Suresh DoravariCalifornia Institute of Technology, USAAn introduction to LIGO: science, technol-ogy and research opportunities

15 January 2014Dhrubaditya MitraNordita, StockholmNew paradigm of solar magnetic activity

15 January 2014Vineeth ValsanUniversity of Ferrara, ItalyExtending the band of focusing X-ray tele-scopes beyond 100 keV: motivations and pro-posed solutions

06 January 2014Bruce BassetSAAO, South AfricaRise of the machines: Machine learning andprospects for the future of empirical astro-physics

03 January 2014Monique PickObservatoire de Paris, Meudon, FranceContribution of solar and heliospheric radioobservations on our understanding of CMEsand transient events

18 December 2013Harry van der LaanLeiden University and University of Utrecht

The development of post-WWII AstronomyinEurope

17 December 2013Chiranjib KonarInstitute of Astronomy Astrophysics, AcademiaSinica, TaiwanA new era of radio galaxy physics: theory vs.observations

12 December 2013Jeremie LasueInstitute for Research in Astrophysics andPlanetology, Toulouse, FranceExploring Mars with ChemCam on-board MarsScience Laboratory

02 December 2013L. V. E. KoopmansKapteyn Astronomical Institute, Univ. ofGroningenConstraints on Dark Matter in Galaxies fromstrong gravitational lensing

26 November 2013Aveek SarkarIISER, KolkataFlux-tube texture of the Solar Wind: simu-lating plasma beta scalingof anisotropic magnetic field fluctuations

21 November 2013Tobias C. HinseKorea Astronomy & Space Science InstituteDetection & dynamical aspects of extrasolarcircumbinary companions

13 November 2013P. VenkatakrishnanUdaipur Solar ObservatoryOn net currents in Sunspots


13 November 2013Kandaswamy SubramanianIUCAA, PuneProbing the universe using high redshift galax-ies

23 September 2013Ananta C. PradhanTIFR, MumbaiA stellar population synthesis model for thestudy of ultravioletstar counts of the Galaxy

04 September 2013Georges MeylanLaboratoire d’astrophysique, Ecole Polytech-nique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL), Switzer-landGravitational lensing: an astrophysical tool

07 August 2013Paul J. WiitaThe college of New Jersey, USAUsing Kepler to investigate AGN variability

06 August 2013Yuri ShchekinovSouthern Federal University, RussiaCosmological aspects of habitability

01 August 2013Solai JeyakumarUniversidad de Guanajuato, MexicoOutflows in radio sources: Numerical simu-lations of jet cloud interaction

30 July 2013Henning FlaecherUniversity of Bristol, UKSearches for supersymmetry at the large HadronCollider, CERN

18 July 2013

Soumen BasakCentre d’Etudes de SACLAY, FranceA needlet ILC analysis of WMAP 9-yeardata

03 July 2013Girija RajaramCSRE,IIT, BombaySolar-terrestrial magnetic field interactionsand their consequences

02 July 2013Andrew ColeSchool of Mathematics & Physics, Univ. Tas-mania, AustraliaThe small Magellanic Cloud in space andtime

20 June 2013Bijaya Kumar SahooPhysical Research Laboratory, AhmedabadPossibility of temporal variation of the fine-structure constant

19 June 2013Koshy GeorgeKapteyn Astronomical InstituteThe netherlands recent star formation in clus-ter early-type galaxies

30 May 2013S. Sumangala RaoIndian Institute of Astrophysics, BengaluruSpectroscopic Studies of RV Tau and relatedobjects28 May 2013N. Kameswara RaoIndian Institute of Astrophysics, BengaluruThe odd ball R CorBor - DY Centauri

20 May 2013M. BiandaIstituto Ricerche Solari Locarno, IRSOL, Switzer-land


IRSOL Locarno and the collaboration withIIA

17 May 2013K. NagarajuMaxPlanck Institute for Solar System Re-search, GermanyFast solar polarimeter: Concept and labora-tory test results

13 May 2013Pankaj AgrawalInstitute of Physics, BhubaneswarSearching the missing piece in the StandardModel - the Higgs Boson

19 April 2013Surajit PaulIUCAA, PuneBlast wave like evolution of energy and galaxycluster medium

Chapter 8

MISCELLANEOUS ACTIVITIES BYIIA STAFF

8.1 Talks given in national/

international meetings

outside IIA

Invited:

G. C. Anupama

• Time Domain Science: A Few Cases.Invited talk in the “TMT Science andInstrument Workshop: Science in theTMT Era”. Tokyo, Japan, October 16-17, 2013.

S. P. Bagare

• Calibration and Performance of PredeSkyradiometer with R. B. Singh, Shan-tikumar S. Ningombam, Sangita K. Padhy,and S. P. Bagare, “International SkynetWorkshop,” Chiba University, Japan,July 4-5, 2013.

P. Chingangbam

• Looking for Traces of Residual Fore-ground Signals in the CMB Data fromWMAP and Planck. “InternationalMeeting on Advances in Astro-particlePhysics and Cosmology (AAPCOS 2013)”,IAS Shimla, June 14-15, 2013.

B. P. Das

• Probing the States Of Ultracold Mat-ter Using High Performance Comput-ing, Garuda-NKN Partners Meet, Ben-galuru, July 25, 2013.

• Electric Dipole Moment of the Elec-tron and Supersymmetry, Conferenceon “Supersymmetry and Dark Mat-ter”, Indian Institute of Science, Ben-galuru, October 4, 2013.

• Theoretical Aspects of Group III A IonClocks, “Regional Conference on RadioScience”, Pune, January 2, 2014.

M. Das

• Peering into the Dark: Low Luminos-ity Galaxies in Our Nearby Universe,NCRA, April 8, 2013.

• Galaxies in Our Universe, St. Joseph’sCollege, Bengaluru, July, 2013.

R. T. Gangadhara

• Pulsar Radio Emission and Polariza-tion, “International Conference on Ra-dio Science (INC-URSI)” held at Sym-biosis Institute of Technology (SIT),Pune, during January 2–5, 2014.

84


S. Giridhar

• Spectral Classification a Tool to Un-derstand Stars, Golden Jubilee Com-memoration Lecture at Pt RavishankarShukla University, Raipur, February 6,2014.

• Women in Astronomy at National sym-posium on “Women as Leaders: Roles,Issues and Concerns,” Centre for WomenStudies, Pt Ravishankar Shukla Uni-versity Raipur, February 5, 2014.

J. Javaraiah

• Solar Cycle Predictions, in 2nd Asia-Oceania Space Weather Alliance(AOSWA)Workshop, Kunming, China,November 4-7, 2013.

U. S. Kamath

• Introduction to the Physics of Starsand Stellar Evolution, Workshop onAstronomy and Astrophysics, Univer-sity of Mysore, November 16, 2013.

P. Kharb

• AGN meeting titled “Workshop on Ra-dio Studies of Galaxies and GalaxySystems”, held March 4-6, 2014, at theInter-University Centre for Astronomy& Astrophysics (IUCAA), Pune, titledTriggering jet activity and the Radio-loudness dichotomy.

• Colloquium at Academia Sinica Insti-tute of Astronomy & Astrophysics(ASIAA), Taipei, on July 26, 2013, ti-tled A Multi-wavelength Study of MO-JAVE Blazar Jets: Clues about theirEmission Mechanisms.

• Kashmir University Conference on “Highenergy Emission from AGN”, held Oc-tober 7-9, 2013, in Srinagar, titled X-ray and Optical Emission from AGNJets: A Close look at MOJAVE Blazars.

• Physics Department, Indian Instituteof Science (IISc), on September 10,2013, titled Clues about Jet Propaga-tion and Emission from a Multi-wavelength Study of MOJAVE Blazars.

P. K. Mahesh

• TMT M1 control system hardware, 32ndScientific Meeting of the ASI, IISER,Mohali, March 20-22, 2014.

A. Mangalam

• Analysis and Modeling of Light curvesfrom Blazars in “Multiwavelength Studyof Blazars: Data Acquisition and Mod-elling” at Manipal Centre for NaturalSciences, Manipal University, ManipalJuly 8-9, 2013.

• Orbital Signatures in X-ray and OpticalLight curves from Black Holes in “Ac-cretion Onto Black Holes”, TIFR, Goa,September 5-7, 2013.

• Tidal Encounters of Supermassive BlackHoles in the Nuclei of Galaxies: Obser-vational Implications in Workshop on“Radio Studies of Galaxies and GalaxySystems” IUCAA, Pune, March 4 - 6,2014.

• Force-Free Fields: from Photosphereto Corona in “INDO-UK Seminar onPlasma Processes in the Solar and SpacePlasma at Diverse Spatio-temporal Scales: Upcoming Challenges in the Scienceand Instrumentation”, ARIES, ManoraPeak, Nainital, March 26-28, 2014.

P. Mohan

• Statistical Constraints on AGN BlackHole Mass and Spin, High Energy Emis-sion from Active Galactic Nuclei, Uni-versity of Kashmir, Srinagar, October7-9, 2013.


• Models of Observational Signatures ofBlack Holes, Bengal Engineering andScience University, Shibpur, Howrah,March 11, 2014.

K. N. Nagendra

• Partial Redistribution Theory and itsApplications in the Interpretation ofSecond Solar Spectrum Location 7th in-ternational Solar PolarizationWorkshop(SPW7), Kunming, China, September9-13, 2013.

• Sun as a Proving Ground for PolarizedLight Scattering Theories Location, 32ndScientific Meeting of the ASI, IISER,Mohali, March 20-22, 2014.

G. Pandey

• Spectroscopy of Hydrogen-poor stars,VAMDC Meeting at IUAC, New Delhi,April 3, 2014.

K. P. Raju

• Physics of the Solar Atmosphere, Na-tional Seminar on Fundamental andApplied Physics, Govt Arts College,Thiruvananthapuram, December 11,2013.

K. B. Ramesh

• Umbra-Penumbra area ratio of sunspotsin the solar cycles of yester-century,32nd Scientific Meeting of the ASI,IISER, Mohali, March 20-22, 2014.

K. E. Rangarajan

• India’s National Large Solar Telescope,EGU meeting in Vienna, April 11, 2013in the session on “Large ground basedsolar observational facilities.”

B. Ravindra

• Evolution of Magnetic Helicity and En-ergy in Active Regions, Young Scien-tists Meet, S.N. Bose National Centerfor Basic Sciences, Kolkata, January28-29, 2014

M. Sampoorna

• Polarized Line Formation with Angle-Dependent Partial Frequency Redistri-bution Location “7th international So-lar Polarization Workshop (SPW7)”Kunming, China, September 9-13, 2013.

S. Sengupta

• More than 800 Planets: An Introduc-tion to these Wonderful Customers, In-vited introductory speaker and co-ordinator of Planet and Star Formation ses-sion in the Fifth Indo-American Fron-tiers of Science Symposium by Indo-USScience and Technology Forum, April07-10, 2013.

P. Sreekumar

• Science from FERMI presented at the“National Symposium on VHE Gamma-ray Astronomy”, November 2013, or-ganised by BARC.

C. S. Stalin

• “High energy emission from AGN”, Oc-tober 7-9, 2013, Kashmir University,Blazars in the era of Fermi.

• “National Symposium of VHE gamma-ray astronomy, November 25-27, 2013Fermi Blazars: optical - GeV connec-tion.

• “Radio Galaxy Workshop, March 4-6, 2014, IUCAA, Probing the CentralEngine by Multi-band Monitoring ofBlazars.


• “Accretion onto Black Holes”, Septem-ber 5-7, 2013, Goa, AGN Variability:A Multi-Wavelength Perspective.

A. Subramaniam

• Understanding our Galaxy - Milky Way,January 9, 2014, National Symposiumon New Horizons in Astronomy & As-trophysics, St. Teresa’s college, Er-nakulam.

Contributed:

G. C. Anupama

• Evolution of the Optical Spectrum ofthe 2011 Outburst of the Recurrent NovaT Pyxidis. 32nd Scientific Meeting ofthe ASI, IISER, Mohali, March 20-22,2014.

S. Choudhury

• Poster: What does the Metallicity Maptell us about the Evolution of the LargeMagellanic Cloud ?, 32nd Scientific Meet-ing of the ASI, IISER, Mohali, March20-22, 2014.

• Poster: CT1 Washington Photometryof mostly Unstudied Large MagellanicCloud Star Clusters, at Annual Meet-ing of the Argentinian AstronomicalSociety, September 16-20, 2013.

M. Das

• Molecular Gas and Star Formation inIsolated Void Galaxies, 32nd ScientificMeeting of the ASI, IISER, Mohali,March 20-22, 2014.

S. Das

• Plenary talk given at “Aspect of Cos-mology”. The topic was on warm darkmatter of the universe.

R. T. Gangadhara

• Equilibrium Magnetic Structures in thePartially Ionized Solar Atmosphere, Na-tional Seminar on Nonlinear and Com-plex Phenomena, January 7-9, 2014,Jadavpur University, Kolkata.

K. M. Hiremath

• “The 1st COSPAR Symposium on Plan-etary Systems of our Sun and otherStars, and the Future of Space Astron-omy”, Bangkok, Thailand, November11-15, 2013. Most Likely Candidatesof Exoplanets that Harbor Life in theUniverse. Posters: (i) Absence of Su-per Earths in the Solar System: Cluesfrom Exoplanetary Data (ii)Genesis ofMagnetic Field Structure of Solar Sys-tem Bodies Due to Past CatastrophicEvents.

J. Jose

• Stellar Content of Selected Galactic Trig-gered Star Forming Regions presentedduring the conference “Massive YoungClusters: Milkyway to Far location,”Puebla, Mexico, 02 December 2013.

P. Kharb

• International “Meterwavelength Sky”Conference, held December 9-13, 2013in National Centre for Radio Astro-physics (NCRA), Pune, Probing Ra-dio Emission in Seyfert Galaxies onParsec- and Kiloparsec-scales.

A. Mangalam

• Self-consistent Model of the Evolutionof Black hole Mass and Spin, 32nd Sci-entific Meeting of the ASI, IISER, Mo-hali, March 20-22, 2014.


K. N. Nagendra

• Following three posters were presentedat the SPW7: i) The Role of Quan-tum Interference and Partial Redistri-bution in the Solar Ba II D2 4554Angstrom Line by H. N. Smitha, K. N.Nagendra, J. O. Stenflo* and M. Sam-poorna, 7th international Solar Polar-ization Workshop (SPW7), Kunming,China during September 9-13, 2013.ii) Intrinsically Polarized Blend Linesby K. Sowmya, K. N. Nagendra, andM. Sampoorna, 7th international SolarPolarization Workshop (SPW7, Kun-ming, China during September 9-13,2013 iii) Electron Scattering Redistri-bution Effect on Atomic Line Polariza-tion, H. D. Supriya, K. N. Nagendra,B. Ravindra, and M. Sampoorna, 7thinternational Solar Polarization Work-shop (SPW7) Kunming, China duringSeptember 9-13, 2013.

S. P. Rajaguru

• Effects of Observation Heights and At-mospheric Wave Evolution in Time-distance Helioseismology of MagneticRegions, “Fifty Years of Seismology ofthe Sun and Stars”, Tucson, Arizona,May 6-10, 2013, National Solar Obser-vatory, USA.

K. E. Rangarajan

• Prototype Spectropolarimeter for Na-tional Large Solar Telescope, EGUmeet-ing in Vienna on April 10, 2013 in thesession on “Instrumentation for groundbased solar telescopes.”

M. Safonova

• Planets in the Early Universe; Searchfor Planets in Globular Clusters by Mi-crolensing: M4 results; Developing High-Altitude Balloon Science: UV Spectro-graph to Observe Comet ISON. The 1st

COSPAR Symposium “Planetary Sys-tems of our Sun and other Stars.”

• The Future of Space Astronomy, Bangkok,Thailand November 11-15, 2013.

S. Subramanian

• “TMT Science and Instrumentation Work-shop in Tokyo,” Generation of Near In-frared Guide Star Catalogue for TMTObservations, Japan, October 16-17,2013.

• “TMT Science and Instrumentation Work-shop in Indian Institute of Astrophysics”,Generation of Near Infrared Guide StarCatalogue for TMT Observations andScience with MOBIE, Bengaluru, Jan-uary 16-18, 2014.

Lectures given in any national,

international, in-house meeting,conference, workshop, school or-

ganized at IIA

S. G. Bhargavi

• Gamma Ray Bursts, Kodai SummerSchoool, May 2013.

P. Chingangbam

• Symposium on Revelations from Planck,April 17, 2013.

K. George

• MOBIE, “ITCC Science and Instru-mentation Meeting,” December 9-10,2013, IIA.

U. S. Kamath

• Infrared Multislit Spectrograph, “India-TMT Meeting,” December 9-10, 2013.


A. K. Pati

• Nearby Galaxies and Stellar Popula-tion, “ASTROSAT Baseline Science Meet-ing” meeting held during February 6-7,2014.

A. Prasad

• Application of Non-linear Force-Free Fieldsfor Solar Active Regions in the NLST-ADITYA meeting at IIA, Bengalurufrom November 18-20, 2013.

K. E. Rangarajan

• Backend instrument development forNLST, National level NLST-Aditya Sci-ence meeting, November 18-20, 2013.

B. Ravindra

• Solar Instrumentations and Observa-tions Kodaikanal Summer school, Ko-daikanal Observatory, May, 2013.

• Probing the Chromosphere with NarrowBand Imager, NLST- ADITYA Sciencemeeting, IIA, Bangalore, November 18-20, 2013.

• Solar Instrumenations and Observations,Indian Institute of Space Science andTechnology, M.Tech. (Optical Engi-neering) students at IIA Bangalore, Jan-uary 1, 2014.

T. Sivarani

• Data pipeline for TMT, and TMT HROSdesign, India-TMT collaboration meet-ing, January 2014, IIA, Bangalore.

• Milkyway satellites and challenges toLambda CDM, during the meeting on“Aspects of Cosmology,” at IIA.

S. Sengupta

• Physics and Chemistry of Brown Dwarfs,February 18, 2014, Invited colloquiumat S.N.Bose National Center for BasicSciences, Kolkata.

• In search of another Earth, February19, 2014, Invited colloquium at Presi-dency University, Kolkata.

P. Sreekumar

• Recent results from Fermi Gamma-rayTelescope, and Indian Mega Astronom-ical Projects, Kodaikanal Summer School,May 2014.

Invited lectures (not popular lec-

ture) given in any academic in-stitution other than IIA which isnot a part of any meeting/conference

G. C. Anupama

• Stellar Explosions (IISc Colloquium: Novem-ber 29, 2013).

S. G. Bhargavi

• Stellar Structure and evolution, lecturesgiven at JN Planatarium as a part ofREAP program.

B. P. Das

• Present and Future Atomic Clocks, De-partment of Physics, IIT Madras, Col-loquium, February 26, 2014.

S. Das

• Chameleon Cosmology and their Astro-physical Signatures, ICTS, TIFR, Ban-galore.


K. George

• IISc Astrophysics Seminar on January21, 2014, Recent star formation in clus-ter early-type galaxies.

K. M. Hiremath

• Internal Structure, Dynamics and Chem-ical Composition of the Sun, CMR In-stitute of Technology, September 26,2013.

J. Jose

• Sh2-252 in Perspective: Stellar Con-tent, Properties and Star FormationActivity Location, NOAO, Arizona, USA,December 13, 2013.

A. Mangalam

• A course of 14 lectures on Fluid Me-chanics and Plasma Physics to MScstudents at Pondicherry University dur-ing October-November 2013.

G. Pandey

• Recent Studies on Hydrogen-deficientStars, February 11, 2014, Physics De-partment, IISc.

Anish Parwage

• Delivered a series of lectures on HighPerformance Computing at Gujarat Tech-nical University (GTU), Gandhinagar,Gujarat for ME students from Decem-ber 2-6, 2013.

K. E. Rangarajan

• Science Objectives of NLST, AppliedMathematics Dept., Univ. of Sheffield,April 19, 2013.

B. E. Reddy

• Excess Lithium in K giants: A puz-zle to stellar models 16th May, 2013,NAOC, Beijing, China.

M. Safonova

• Beginning of the Universe, Lecture atthe Summer School on Astronomy andAstrophysics, M. P. Birla Institute ofFundamental Research, Bangalore, 18April 2013.

• What can we learn from comets andhow ? Lecture at National TrainingWorkshop, organized by DST and Vi-gyan Prasar, Guwahati Planetarium,22-24 August, 2013.

• Search for Planets in Globular Clus-ters by Microlensing, “Time Variabilityand Transients session” at the 3rd Pro-Am meeting in astronomy, organizedby ASI and Homi Bhabha Centre forScience and Education, Mumbai, Oc-tober 26-27, 2013.

• Our Home Universe, Lecture at Gen-eral Astronomy course, M. P. Birla In-stitute of Fundamental Research, Ban-galore, 27 January 2014.

S. Sengupta

• Physics and Chemistry of Brown Dwarfs,February 18, 2014, Invited colloquiumat S. N. Bose National Center for Ba-sic Sciences, Kolkata (2) In search ofanother Earth, February 19, 2014, In-vited colloquium at Presidency Univer-sity, Kolkata.

T. Sivarani

• Colloquium at NCRA Pune, on ”Stel-lar Relics from the early Galaxy”, April2014.


P. Sreekumar

• Upcoming Astronomical Observatories,Bangalore University, September 2013.

A. Subramaniam

• Upcoming major facilities in Astron-omy, Cochin, 10 January 2014, CochinUniversity of Science and Technology.

Public communications

S. Das

• Gave a talk To PhD students of IIA on“dark energy and dark matter”. Thistalk is known as 7 slide presentation forPhD students.

Awards

D. Banerjee

• Associate Editor of the Journal SolarPhysics.

P. Chingangbam

• Council member, Indian Association forGeneral Relativity and Gravitation (IA-GRG).

S. Choudhury

• What does the Metallicity Map tell usabout the Evolution of the Large Mag-ellanic Cloud ? was awarded the bestposter in the category of Extragalac-tic Astronomy and Cosmology, in ASI2014 (March 20 - 22), held at IISER,Mohali.

S. Das

• Visiting faculty at UBC, Vancouver,Canada for Summer 2014. Has beennominated for Meudon Observatory, sum-mer fellowship.

U. S. Kamath

• Member of the ISDT (International Sci-ence Development Team) on Time Do-main Science for the TMT (Thirty Me-ter Telescope) Project.

P. Mohan

• PhD awarded in April 2014 from theBengal Engineering and Science Uni-versity, Shibpur, Howrah. He was guidedby A. Mangalam.

K. N. Nagendra

• Serving as the main-editor of the pro-ceedings of the 7th international So-lar Polarization Workshop held in Kun-ming, China, September 9-13, 2013.

• Served as the member of SOC con-stituted to organize Solar PolarizationWorkshop 7.

• Serving as the member of SOC con-stituted to organize IAU Symposium305 on “Polarimetry: From the Sunto Stars and Stellar Environments” tobe held at Costa Rica, November 30-December 5, 2014.

• Will serve as the main-editor for theproceedings of IAU Symposium 305.

A. Prasad

• Shyama Prasad Mukherjee Fellowshipfor SRF by CSIR.

B. E. Reddy

• Member of SOC for IIA symposium298: Setting the Science for GAIA andLAMOST: Large Scale Stellar Popula-tion Surveys, Lijiang, China.


M. Sampoorna

• Young Scientist Platinum Jubilee awardof NASI (National Academy of SciencesIndia) for the year 2013.

• Serving as the co-editor of the proceed-ings of the 7th international Solar Po-larization Workshop held in Kunming,China, September 9-13, 2013.

A. Subramanian

• Fellow, Indian Academy of Sciences,Bangalore.

• Fellow, National Academy of Sciences,Allahabad.

• Associate Editor, Bulletin of Astronom-ical Society of India.

Externally funded projects

G. C. Anupama

• DST-JSPS project A Study of Super-novae in the Nearby Universe - Build-ing Blocks of High Redshift Universe(PIs: G. C. Anupama, K. Nomoto).

D. Banerjee

• Two-year DST and BELSPO bi-lateralProject Contemporary Physical Chal-lenges for Heliospherical and Astrophys-ical Models (CHARM)/National LargeScale Telescope with Dipankar Baner-jee, from IIA as the P.I and Tom VanDoorsselaere, Centre for MathematicsPlasma Astrophysics as the P.I. fromthe Belgian side.

• Principal Investigator of joint three yearUKIERI Trilateral Research Partner-ships between IIA, Queens Universityof Belfast and National Solar Observa-tory, USA.

R. Chaudhuri

• Relativistic Study of the Excited/IonizedStates of Heavy Atoms using CoupledCluster Based Linear Response Theoryfunded by DST-SERB.

B. P. Das

• Symmetry Violations in Atoms and Im-plications for the Standard Model ofParticle Physics, Indian National Sci-ence Academy and Japan Society forthe Promotion of Science.

S. Giridhar

• Development and Fabrication of HighResolution SPectrometer for the 2m HCTfunded by SERB (DST).

K. M. Hiremath

• Possible Linkages between the IndianSummer Monsoon Rainfall and SolarVariability, Indian Space Research Or-ganisation, Bengaluru.

J. P. Lancelot

• ISRO INSAT 3D Project. As per theMoU between ISAC and IIA, polishingof the sunshield panels for the METpayload for the INSAT 3DR2 has beencompleted during this period. (with M.G. Mohan, R. Ismail, P. Subramani).

B. E. Reddy

• Technology and prototype developmentof Giant Segmented Mirror Technology(GSMT), Department of Science andTechnology, Govt. of India.

C. S. Stalin

• Estimation of H0 through monitoringof gravitationally lensed quasars, 2012 -2014: Indo-Swiss collaborative project.


Workshop, conference, school etc.

organized at IIA or outside IIA

G. C. Anupama

• Co-Chair, SOC, 32nd Scientific Meet-ing of the ASI, 2014 March 20-22, IISER,Mohali.

§. P. Bagare

• A one-day workshop on Astronomy andAstrophysics was organized at the De-partment of Studies in Physics, Univer-sity of Mysore, on November 16, 2013.

S. Das

• Co-organizer for “Aspect of Cosmol-ogy” at IIA.

R. T. Gangadhara

• Organized the visit of Prof. JocelynBell during January 7-12, 2014. -Organized(1) Interaction meeting with students

K. George

• Organising Committe member for ITCCScience and Instrumentation Meetingheld on 9-10 December, 2013 at IIA.

A. Mangalam

• Serving as a member of SOC for ASInational meetings in the period Septem-ber 2013- September 2016.

Anish Parwage

• Organized a one day workshop withNVIDIA on OpenACC technology un-der the guidance of Prof. B. P. Dasin IIA Auditorium on 5th September2013.

A. Subramaniam

• TMT-India Science and Instrumenta-tion meeting of the coordinating insti-tutes: 9-10 December 2013 2. TMTScience and Instrumentation meeting:16-18 January 2014.

8.1.1 Popular lectures

B. C. Bhatt

• “General Science in Daily life”, Jan-uary 25, 2014,SVES English High School,Rajajinagar, Bangalore.

• “Basis Science and Astronomy”, Febru-ary 28, 2014, National Science Day,CREST Campus, IIA-Hoskote.

M. Das

• Extragalactic Astronomy, Christ Col-lege INSPIRE programmeeting for stu-dents, April 18, 2013, 2 lectures.

R. T. Gangadhara

• Discovery of Pulsars at Faculty Hall,IISc, January 9, 2014 and Universeand Us, Jawaharalal Nehru Planetar-ium, Bangalore, on 11 January 2014.Women in Science on January 11, 2014at IISc, which was held in sponsorshipwith Indian Academy of Sciences.

K. George

• Optical Astronomy: Past, Present andFuture. Inaugural talk at Yuvasas-trasandhya, held at Nucleus, The Cen-tre of science, Palakkad, Kerala, March30, 2014.

P. Kharb

• National Science Day, 2013, at IIA, ti-tled Our Universe: A Short Journeyfrom the Earth to Galaxy Superclusters.


J. P. Lancelot

• Optical Telescopes MPBIFR, Banga-lore, “100 hour certificate course inAstronomy and Astrophysics,” August17, 2013.

A. Mangalam

• A modern perspective on Physics ofGalaxies, University of Mysore, Novem-ber 16, 2013.

A. K. Pati

• Exploring the Universe, 34th INSPIREInternship Program for young talents,School of Biotechnolgy, KIIT Univer-sity, Bhubaneswar on February 19, 2014.

• Exploring the Universe and Telescopesand Instruments talks to visiting sci-entists from NAL Officers club, VainuBappu Observatory, Kavalur, 7 March,2014.

M. Safonova

• Now anyone can discover: a new socialface of astronomy, 3rd Pro-Am meet-ing in astronomy, organized by ASIand Homi Bhabha Centre for Scienceand Education, Mumbai, 26-27 Octo-ber, 2013.

• Comet ISON, approaching perihelion,RBANMS Pre-University College, Ban-galore, 28 November, 2013.

• Comets and the Solar System, Old FortHigh School, Chamarajpet, Bangalore,13 December 2013.

P. Sreekumar

• Exploring the Unexplored : New Fron-tiers in Astronomy, Sir C. V. RamanMemorial Lecture, Delton Hall, IETEBangalore Center, February 2014.

8.1.2 Public Outreach

B. C. Bhatt

• Visited Sripuram, Sri Narayani Peedam,Thirumalaikodi, Vellore (TN) on Septem-ber 29-30, 2013. A 6-inch Celestrontelescope was installed. Telescope as-sembly and operations were demon-strated to Peedam officials and astro-nomical objects were shown to the gen-eral public gathered there. Some of thePeedam members were trained in as-sembling the telescope and pointing/looking towards far objects in sky. Theaim is to spread scientific awarenessthrough telescope viewing and also tointroduce astronomy in nearby schools.

• Participated in the 3rd National LevelExhibition & Project Competition un-der DST-INSPIRE Award Program heldat Pragati Maidan, New Delhi duringOctober 8-10, 2013. Posters introduc-ing astronomy and related work doneat IIA were put up in the designatedarea of the exhibition.

• Attended annual general meeting of101st Indian Science Congress held atJammu University, Jammu, during Febru-ary 3-7, 2013 and participated in “IndiaVision 2020-Mega Expo”.

S. Choudhury

• Starry Messengers, conducted by theOutreach committee of IIA, carried outin different schools of Bangalore. Thedetails are as follows: (1) July 05, 2014at Oxford School, Devanhalli, Banga-lore. (2) December 21, 2013 at Red-dyjna Sangha School, Koramangala, Ban-galore. (3) August 31, 2013 at ModernSchool, J P Nagar, Bangalore. (4) 20


July, 2013 at MSR Highschool, Banga-lore. (5) June 15, 2013 at MadiwalaHighschool, Bangalore.

M. Das

• Participated in science day, February2014. Poster contributed on Galax-ies in our Universe with Margarita Sa-fonova.

R. T. Gangadhara

• Discovery of Pulsars, Faculty Hall, IISc,January 9, 2014.

• Universe and Us, Jawaharalal NehruPlanetarium, Bangalore, January 11,2014.

P. Kharb

• Our Universe: A Short Journey fromthe Earth to Galaxy Superclusters, Ja-gadish Bose National Science Talent

Search (JBNSTS), Kolkata, on June 8,2014, at IIA and National Science Day,IIA, Bangalore, February 2013.

K. B. Ramesh

• Guest lectures on The Sun and the so-lar system in general astronomy coursesheld during the academic year 2013-2014 at MP Birla institute of Funda-mental Research, Bangalore.

M. Safonova

• Tutorial, Teacher training camp for theIndian National Astronomy Olympiad,Homi Bhabha Centre for Science andEducation, Mumbai, October 28-31, 2013.

• Gravitational Lensing poster and Bal-loon Experiment at the National Sci-ence Day, IIA, 28 February 2014.


8.2 Staff Activities

8.2.1 Welfare of SC/ST Staff &

Physically challenged

A senior officer of the institute has been func-tioning as the liaison officer to support thewelfare of the SC/ST staff members. Specialconsideration as per norms during recruit-ment and regular assessment has been pro-vided to these categories of employees. As ofthe end of the year, members belonging tothe SC, ST and OBC categories constitute13.36%, 11.55%, 4.33% respectively of the to-tal staff strength. In addition, reservationscontinue to be extended to OBCs and phys-ically disabled persons. Proactive efforts arecontinuously made towards their welfare. Fa-cilities and mechanisms have been providedfor special administrative as well as technicaltraining of staff from the historically disad-vantaged categories.

8.2.2 Official Language Imple-

mentation

Four meetings were conducted in the Insti-tute and the reports were sent to the Dept.of Science & Technology, New Delhi.

Hindi Workshop

In order to speed up the implementation ofOfficial Language in the Institute and to im-prove the staff members capacity for doingofficial work in hindi, one Hindi Workshopwas conducted for the employees working in

Administration on 29 August, 2013. The re-port was sent to the Dept. of Science & Tech-nology, New Delhi.

Hindi Day/Fortnight CelebrationThe institute celebrated Hindi Fortnight from2 September 2013 to 14 September 2013.During the occasion six competitions wereconducted in the institute viz. “Hindi-EnglishNoting” competition on 2 September 2013,“Hindi Speech competition on 4 September2013, “Hindi Easy Writing competition on 6September 2013, “Hindi Song” competitionon 10 September 2013, “Picture Narration”competition on 11 September and “HindiVisual-Quiz competition on 13 September2013. 14 September 2013 was celebrated as“Hindi Day in the institute. Dr. P. Sreeku-mar, Director presided over the function. Dr.P. Kumaresan, Administrative Officer gavethe welcome speech. Chairman addressedthe audience and said that as it is the moralresponsibility of all staff members to accom-plish official work in hindi, they have to tryto do more official work in hindi.

Dr. Gajendra Pandey, read the HomeMinisters message of Hindi Day. Cash awardswere given to the winners. The functionwas concluded with a vote of thanks byDr. S. Rajanatesan, Section Officer(Hindi).Two hindi competitions were conducted viz.Hindi Administrative Glossary and HindiVisual-Quiz on the 17 September 2013 re-spectively at VBO, IIA, Kavalur. Cash awardswere given to the winners.

(S. Rajanatesan)


Hindi Day was celebrated at the Institute on 14 September 2013. Various competitions were held and

prizes distributed. (Standing : Left to Right) Dr. S. Rajanatesan, Amit Kumar, Dr. G. Pandey, Dr.

P. Kumaresan (Administrative Officer), Dr. P. Sreekumar (Director), Malini Rajan, N. K. Pramila,

Y. Yerappa, K. C. Viswanath, K. Bhaskaran, K. Shankaranarayanan & K. G. Erappa.

Chapter 9

STAFF LIST 2013 – 2014

Academic & Scientific Staff

Director: P.Sreekumar (w.e.f. 01.07.2013)

Director (Acting): Bhanu Pratap Das(upto 30.06.2013)

Distinguished Professor: S. Sirajul Hasan

Senior Professor: Bhanu Pratap Das, H.C. Bhatt, Jayant Murthy, T. P. Prabhu,Sunetra Giridhar

Professor: G. C. Anupama, S. P. Bagare, A.K. Pati, K. N. Nagendra, K. E.Rangarajan,B. Raghavendra Prasad, R. K. Chaudhuri

Associate Professor: Annapurni Subra-maniam, Aruna Goswami, Arun Mangalam,B. C. Bhatt, S. Chatterjee, Dipankar Baner-jee, B. Eswar Reddy, R. T. Gangadhara,Gajendra Pandey, K. M. Hiremath, J. Javara-iah, R.Kariyappa, C. Muthumariappan, S.Muneer, Prajval Shastri, P. S. Parihar, S.P. Rajaguru, K. P. Raju, K. B. Ramesh, R.Ramesh, D. K. Sahu, A. Satya Narayanan,S. K. Sengupta, K.Sundararaman, SushmaG.V.Mallik, M. Srinivasa Rao

Reader: Firoza Sutaria, C.Kathiravan, M.Das, Pravabati Chingangbam, Preeti Kharb,B.Ravindra, Sivarani Thirupathi, C. S. Stalin,M.Sampoorna, Subinoy Das

Scientist D: U. S. Kamath, B. A. Varghese

Scientist C: E. Ebenezer Chellasamy, B. S.Nagabhushana, Ravinder Kumar Banyal, N.Shantikumar Singh, G.S.Suryanarayana

Scientist B: Muthu Priyal, Nazia AfreenAhmed, Namgyal Dorjey, Rajendra BahadurSingh, K. Prabhu, G.Selvakumar

Research Associate B: M. Appakutty

Adjunct Scientist: Durgesh Tripati, K.Shankarasubramanian

Visiting Professor: S. N. Tandon

Visiting Scientist: S. G. Bhargavi, KoshyGeorge, M. Safonova, Ramya Sethuram

Honorary Professor: V. K. Gaur

(Post Doctoral/Visiting Fellow: JayashreeRoy, Jessy Jose, Rajesh Gopal, Smitha Sub-ramanian

Technical staff

Engineer G: A. V. Ananth

Engineer F: M. S. Sundararajan, G. Srini-vasulu

98


Engineer E: P. M. M. Kemkar, P. K. Ma-hesh,R. R. Reddy, J.P.L.C. Thangadurai

Librarian: Christina Birdie

Engineer D: Amit Kumar, P. Anbazhagan,V. Arumugam, S. S. Chandramouli, DorjeAngchuk, Faseehana Saleem, S. Kathiravan,S. Nagabushana, B. Ravikumar Reddy, M.V. Ramaswamy, S. Sriram

Scientific Officer SD: Rekhesh Mohan, L.Yeswanth

Principal Document Officer: S. Rajiva

Engineer C: K. Anupama, Anish Parwage,K. Dhananjay, Sanjiv Gorka, Sonam Jor-phail, Tashi Thsering Mahay, K. C. Thu-lasidharen, Tsewang Dorjai, P. Umesh Ka-math, Vellai Selvi, Venkata Suresh Narra

Sr. Technical Officer: K. Jayakumar, K.Kuppuswamy, R. Selvendran

Technical Officer B:N. Sivaraj, Narasimhappa

Engineer B:Mohd.Faisal Nawaz, V.Natarajan,K. Ravi, A. Ramachandran, S.Ramamoorthy,N. Raj Kumar, S.Suresh

Technical Officer: A. V. Velayuthan Kutty

Tech. Associate B: D. Babu, P. Kumar-avel, J. Manoharan, S. Pukalenthi, C. V. SriHarsha, M. R. Somashekar, S. Venkatesh-wara Rao

Asst. Librarian B: B. S. Mohan, P. Praba-har

Draughtsman E: V. K. Subramanian

Sr. Tech. Asst. C: R. Ismail Jabillullah,T. K. Muralidas

Tech. Associate: V. Gopinath, Mallappa

Sr. Tech. Asst. B: D. Kanagaraj, A. Mu-niyandi, M. Nagaraj, K. N. Sagayanathan

Sr. Research Asst. B: V. Moorthy

Technical Asst. C: D. Premkumar, V.Robert

Consultant: Lt. Col Kuldip Chandar

Sr. Consultant: M. Nageswara Rao

Administrative staff

Administrative Officer: P. Kumaresan

Principal Staff Officer: K. Thiyagarajan

Accounts Officer: S. B. Ramesh

Purchase Officer: Y. K. Raja Iyengar

Stores Officer: D. Lakshmaiah

Sr. Asst. Acc. Officer: G. R. Venugopal

Sr. Section Officer: Meena, Narasimhamurthy,Pramila Mohan, S. Rajendran

Section Officer: K. Padmavathy, N. Val-salan, Ramaswamy, Diskit Dolker

Section Officer (Hindi): S. Rajanatesan

Sr. Office Superintendant: Maliny Ra-jan, N. K. Pramila, N. Sathya Bama, UmaMaileveloo, A. Veronica

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