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Annual Report 1988-89 Tata Institute of Fundamental Research Prof. M. G. K. Menon inaugurating the Pelletron Accelerator Facility at TIFR on December 30, 1988. Dr. S. S. Kapoor, Project Director, Pelletron Accelerator Facility, explaining salient features of \ Ion source to Prof. M. G. K. Menon, Dr. M. R. Srinivasan, and others. Annual Report 1988-89 Contents Council of Management 3 School of Physics 19 Homi Bhabha Centre for Science Education 80 Theoretical Physics l'j Honorary Fellows 3 Theoretical A strophysics 24 Astronomy 2') Basic Dental Research Unit 83 Gravitation 37 A wards and Distinctions 4 Cosmic Ray and Space Physics 38 Experimental High Energy Physics 41 Publications, Colloquia, Lectures, Seminars etc. 85 Introduction 5 Nuclear and Atomic Physics 43 Condensed Matter Physics 52 Chemical Physics 58 Obituaries 118 Faculty 9 Hydrology M Physics of Semi-Conductors and Solid State Electronics 64 Group Committees 10 Molecular Biology o5 Computer Science 71 Administration. Engineering Energy Research 7b and Auxiliary Services 12 Facilities 77 School of Mathematics 13 Library 79 Tata Institute of Fundamental Research Homi Bhabha Road. Colaba. Bombav 400005. India. Edited by J.D. hloor Published by Registrar. Tata Institute of Fundamental Research Homi Bhabha Road, Colaba. Bombay 400 005 Printed bv S.C. Nad'kar at TATA PRESS Limited. Bombay 400 025 Photo Credits Front Cover: Bharat Upadhyay Inside: Bharat Upadhyay & R.A. A chary a Design and Layout by M.M. Vajifdar and J.D. hloor Council of Management Honorary Fellows Shri J.R.D. Tata (Chairman) Prof. H. Alfven Chairman. Tata Sons Limited Prof. S. Chandrasekhar Prof. K. Chandrasekharan Smt. Kuniud Bansal Prof. R.H. Dalitz Secretary I Higher Education) to Government of Mahunisluru, Prof. Murray Gell-Mann Education and Employment Department Prof. V.L. Ginzburg Prof. Har Gobind Khorana Shri J.J. Bhabha Prof. M.G.K. Menon Managing Trustee. Sir Dorab Tata Trust Prof. S. Miyake Prof. D. Mumford Dr. P. K. Iyengar Prof. Bernard Peters Director. Bhabha Atomic Research Centre Dr. R. Ramanna Prof. B.B. Rossi Prof. M.G.K. Menon Prof. A. Salam Scientific Adviser to the Prime Minister and Prof. L. Schwartz Member. Planning Commission Prof. A. Selberg Shri H.N. Sethna Dr. M.R. Srinivasan Shri J.R.D. Tata Chairman. Atomic Energy Commission and Secretary i<i the Government of India. Prof. Andre Weil Department of Atomic Energy Past Honorary Fellows Prof. P.M.S. Blackett Prof. P.L. Kapitza Shri S. Venkitaramanan Prof. Felix Bloch Dr. John Matthai Secretary to the Government of India Department of Economic Affairs. Ministry of Finance and Prof. Niels Bohr Shri Jawaharlal Nehru Member for Finance. Atomic Energy Commission Prof. S.N. Bose Prof. C.F. Powell Prof. Harish Chandra Prof. C.V. Raman Prof. Virendra Singh Sir John Cockcroft Director. Tula Institute of Fundamental Research Prof. P.A.M. Dirac Prof. C.L. Siegel A wards and Distinctions S. Biswas Awarded Srinivasa Raman ujan Medal of the Indian National Science Elected President of the Nuclear Track Society of India. 1989-91. Academy. 1988. R. V. Gavai Elected Fellow of the Third World Academy of Sciences. Invited to be a member of the international committee for the R. Narasimhan conference "Quark Matter "88", held in Lenox. USA from 26th September to 30 September 1988. Elected Fellow of the National Academy of Sciences (Indial. Allahabad. G. Govil Awarded Om Prakash Bhasin Foundation Award for Science & Technology (Electronics & Telecommunications). i988. Awarded R.K. Asundi Memorial Lecture Award of 1NSA. L.C. Gupta J. V. Narlikar Elected Fellow of the Indian Academy of Sciences. Bangalore, 19X8. Awarded Medal of College de France, Paris, for Visiting Professors. S.S. Jha Awarded 1NSA Vainu Bappu Award. 1988. Awarded Raman Centenary Medal, 1988. T. Padmanabhan Elected Fellow of the American Physical Society. 1988. Received "Honorable Mention" from the Gravity Research Foundation. P.S. Joshi USA, 1988 for the essay 'The role of time in the quantum version Received'Honorable Mention'from the Gravity Research Foundation, of Mach's principle.' LISA. 1988 for the essay "On singularity avoidance in quantum gravity". R. Parimala y.K. Kapahi Awarded Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for Mathematical Sciences. Awarded Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Award for Physical Sciences. 1987. 1987. K.S. Krishna Swamy M. V. Pitke Elected Fellow of the Indian Academy of Science. Elected Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers V.G. Kulkatni (USA). Elected President of the 23rd All India Convention of Marathi Vidnyan Probir Roy Parishad iChalisgaon). Awarded Bhatnagar Award in Physical Sciences. 1987. M. Ravi Kumar Elected Fellow of the Indian Academy of Sciences. Awarded Geeta Udgaonkar Award for his Ph.D. Thesis. 1988. A'. Ramachandra P.K. Kunte Elected President of the Ramanujan Mathematical Society. 1988-90. Awarded the first prize by Mumbai Marathi Bal Sahilya Parishad T.N. Shorey for the Marathi book "Manavachi Anfara! Zep" 1988. Awarded Shanti Swarup Bhatnauar Prize for Mathematical Sciences. Awarded Maharashtra Stale Award for Literature (Science) for 1987. Marathi book 'Dhoomakeiuchi Swari". 1988. O. Siddiqi R.G. Lagu and D.T. Tarey Awarded Birla Smarak Kosh National Award for Biomedical Research. Awarded the 'Haribhau Motey Award'. 1988. for their book "Gunitachya Gujagoshtf (in Marathil. V. Srinivas M.S. Narasimhan Selected Young Associate of the Indian Academy of Sciences. Awarded Third World Academy of Sciences Prize for Mathematics. B.M. Udgaonkar 1987. Elected President of the Indian Academy of Social Sciences. !98cS-,Sl). of rotating superfluids, critical slowing down in Ising models, and self-organized critical phenomena. In oxide superconductors, the dependence of the critical temperature on the layer structure was studied, and it was shown that strong anisotropy in the energy gap Introduction could lead to a po wer-law dependence of specific heat on temperature. A spin-boson Hamiltonian which facilitates calculation of the structure factor was proposed for localized particles interacting with conduction electrons in a metal. The annual reports of the Institute attempt to encapsulate, in about a hundred pages, the total spectrum of the academic In Theoretical Nuclear Physics, the exact solutions of the Hill- activities of the Institute. These reports primarily cover the various Wheeler-Griffin equation were obtained for some simple Hamiltonians research programs and the new techniques developed in the Institute. involving quarks. The chiralfermion coupled to a topologicalSkyrmion Also included is information regarding other activities of scientists: field was studied. The study of QGP formation in heavy ion collisions organising of and participating in conferences and symposia, delivering revealed that the plasma equilibrium time can be larger than the lectures and lecture courses and promoting science education and plasma hadronization time. popularisation. The contributions in Theoretical Astrophysics covered stellar and A major facility for Nuclear Physics research, Medium Energy solar physics and comets, interstellar matter, classical and quantum Heavy Ion Accelerator facility, involving setting up a 14 UD gravity, and large scale structures in the universe. It was shown Pelletron accelerator, in collaboration with Bhabha Atomic Research that the C2 molecule in comet Halley is formed as a third generation Centre, became operational at TIFR this year and was inaugurated species. A model for stellar convection was developed and asymmetries on 30th December 1988. and shifts of line profiles were studied. Presupernova evolution of massive stars was studied. The studies on the interstellar medium The School of Mathematics continued to produce work of showed six planetary nebulae to have X-ray emission. The study of importance in central areas in mathematics like Algebra, Algebraic gravitational lenses was continued. Matter accretion was examined Geometry, Algebraic and Lie groups, Combinatorics, Ergodic Theory in the vicinity of a blackhole. IRAS low resolution spectrometer and Number Theory. In addition, work on applied mathematics was spectra of 117 M and S Mira variables were studied. In the area of carried out at TIFR Centre, Bangalore, in areas like Numerical galaxies and cosmology, the element iron was isolated as a good Analysis, Partial Differential Equations and Stochastic Processes. indicator for the chemical evolution of galaxies. The work on the evidence for evolution in radio sources distribution and doppler In Theoretical High Energy Physics, work continued in various models for QSOs was continued. The topics studied in classical aspects of two-dimensional field theory—specifically conformal field gravitation included statistical mechanics of gravitating systems, theory, Liouville theory, random surfaces, quantum field theory charged blackhole spacetimes, symmetries and conserved quantities, on higher genus Riemann surfaces and string theory. Topological and volume functions in relativity. It was shown that gravitational aspects of field theory and the Aharonov-Bohm effect were also collapse can result in strong curvature naked singularities emitting studied. bursts of radiations. In quantum gravity, the wavefunctions for the universe, semi-classical limits, and the quantum effects within a Interesting relations have been suggested among the lifetimes of Schwarzchild blackhole were studied. charm hadrons and of bottom hadrons. Limits on the masses of gravitino and gluino were obtained from tree unitarity