Annual Report
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THE INSTITUTE OF MATHEMATICAL SCIENCES C. I. T. Campus, Taramani, Chennai - 600 113. ANNUAL REPORT Apr 2003 - Mar 2004 Telegram: MATSCIENCE Fax: +91-44-2254 1586 Telephone: +91-44-2254 2398, 2254 1856, 2254 2588, 2254 1049, 2254 2050 e-mail: offi[email protected] ii Foreword I am pleased to present the progress made by the Institute during 2003-2004 in its many sub-disciplines and note the distinctive achievements of the members of the Institute. As usual, 2003-2004 was an academically productive year in terms of scientific publications and scientific meetings. The Institute conducted the “Fifth SERC School on the Physics of Disordered Systems”; a two day meeting on “Operator Algebras” and the “third IMSc Update Meeting: Automata and Verification”. The Institute co-sponsored the conference on “Geometry Inspired by Physics”; the “Confer- ence in Analytic Number Theory”; the fifth “International Conference on General Relativity and Cosmology” held at Cochin and the discussion meeting on “Field-theoretic aspects of gravity-IV” held at Pelling, Sikkim. The Institute faculty participated in full strength in the AMS conference in Bangalore. The NBHM Nurture Programme, The Subhashis Nag Memorial Lecture and The Institute Seminar Week have become an annual feature. This year’s Nag Memorial Lecture was delivered by Prof. Ashoke Sen from the Harish-Chandra Research Institute, Allahabad. The Institute has also participated in several national and international collaborative projects: the project on “Automata and concurrency: Syntactic methods for verification”, the joint project of IMSc, C-DAC and DST to bring out CD-ROMS on “The life and works of Srini- vasa Ramanujan”, the Xth plan project “Indian Lattice Gauge Theory Initiative (ILGTI)”, the “India-based neutrino observatory” project, the DRDO project on “Novel materials for applications in molecular electronics and energy storage devices” the DFG-INSA project on “The spectral theory of Schr¨odinger operators”, and the Indo-US project on “Studies in quantum statistics”. The cluster computer being built under the ILGTI project has already reached a performance of 539 GFlops with only 81 nodes and is expected to compete for a slot in the top 500 supercomputers in the world. (I am pleased to note that the full cluster posted a performance of 959 GFlops getting a world rank of 257 in June 2004.) This report has been compiled through the efforts of a committee consisting of Drs. G. Date, Parameswaran Sankaran, C. R. Subramanian and Mr. Paul Pandian (Librarian) together with secretarial assistance from Ms. Usha Devi. The photographs have been contributed by administration and Drs. Rahul Basu, N. D. Hari Dass, Gautam Menon, M. V. N. Murthy. I owe my gratitude to all of them. I look forward to another year full of distinctive achievements for the Institute. April, 2004 R. Balasubramanian iii iv FOREWORD Contents Foreword iii 1 The Institute 1 1.1 Board . 1 1.2 Executive Council . 3 1.3 Faculty . 4 1.4 Scientific Staff . 5 1.5 Technical Staff . 5 1.6 Project Scientists . 6 1.7 Project Staff . 6 1.8 Visiting Scientists . 6 1.9 Post-Doctoral Fellows . 7 1.10 Ph.D. Students . 8 1.11 Administrative Staff . 10 2 Research and Teaching 11 2.1 Mathematics . 11 2.1.1 Research Summary . 11 2.1.2 List of Publications . 14 2.2 Physics . 20 2.2.1 Research Summary . 20 2.2.2 List of Publications . 29 2.3 Theoretical Computer Science . 41 2.3.1 Research Summary . 41 2.3.2 List of Publications . 45 v vi CONTENTS 2.4 Student Programmes . 49 2.4.1 Degrees Awarded . 49 2.4.2 Lecture Courses During 2003 – 2004. 51 2.4.3 Summer Students . 52 2.4.4 Other Students . 53 2.4.5 Apalat Fellowship . 53 2.5 Honours and Awards . 55 3 Other Professional Activities 57 4 Colloquia 63 4.1 Conferences/Workshops Held at IMSc . 63 4.1.1 Fifth SERC School on the Physics of Disordered Systems . 63 4.1.2 NBHM Nurture Programme . 64 4.1.3 Subhashis Nag Memorial Endowment Lecture . 65 4.1.4 Two-Day Meeting on Operator Algebras . 65 4.1.5 Institute Seminar Week . 65 4.1.6 3rd IMSc Update Meeting: Automata and verification . 67 4.2 Other Conferences/Workshops Organized by IMSc . 69 4.2.1 Geometry and Topology inspired by Physics . 69 4.2.2 Conference in Analytic Number Theory . 69 4.2.3 International Conference on General Relativity and Cosmology . 69 4.2.4 Field Theoretic Aspects of Gravity – IV . 70 4.3 Seminars . 72 5 External Interactions 89 5.1 Collaborative Projects with Other Institutions . 89 5.1.1 Automata and concurrency: Syntactic methods for verification . 89 5.1.2 CD-ROMs Project on the Life and Work of Srinivasa Ramanujan . 89 5.1.3 ILGTI . 90 5.1.4 India-based Neutrino Observatory (INO) . 90 5.1.5 Novel Materials for applications in Molecular Electronics and Energy Storage Devices . 91 CONTENTS vii 5.1.6 Spectral Theory of Schr¨odinger Operators . 92 5.1.7 Studies in Quantum Statistics . 92 5.2 Institute Associateships . 93 5.3 Conference Participation and Visits to Other Institutions . 95 5.4 Visitors from Other Institutions . 119 6 Infrastructure 125 6.1 Computer Facilities . 125 6.2 The Library . 126 Obituaries 127 viii CONTENTS Chapter 1 The Institute 1.1 Board Hon’ble Shri M. Thambidurai, Minister for Education, Government of Tamil Nadu, Fort St. George, Chennai 600 009 (Up to June 2003) (Chairman) Hon’ble Shri S. Semmalai, Minister for Education, Government of Tamil Nadu, Fort St. George, Chennai 600 009 (From June 2003) (Chairman) Dr. Anil Kakodkar, Chairman, AEC & Secretary to Government of India, Department of Atomic Energy, CSM Marg, Mumbai 400 001 (From December 2000) (Vice-Chairman) Prof. S. K. Joshi, Honorary Scientist Emeritus CSIR, Vikram Sarabhai Professor, National Physical Laboratory, Dr. K. S. Krishnan Road, New Delhi 110 012 (Member) Prof. E. Balagurusamy, Vice Chancellor, Anna University, Chennai 600 025. (Member) Prof. Mustansir Barma, Department of Physics, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai 400 005 (As on 31st March 2004) (Member) Prof. Ravi Kulkarni, Director, Harish Chandra Research Institute, Chhatnag Road, Jhunsi, Allahabad 211 019 (Member) Prof. C. S. Seshadri, Director, Chennai Mathematical Institute, 92, G.N. Chetty Road, T. Nagar, Chennai 600 017 (Member) 1 2 CHAPTER 1. THE INSTITUTE Prof. S. S. Jha, Department of Physics, Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, Mumbai 400 076 (Member) Smt. Sudha Bhave, I.A.S., Joint Secretary to Government of India, Department of Atomic Energy, CSM Marg, Mumbai 400 001 (Member) Shri Rahul Asthana, I.A.S., Joint Secretary (Finance) to Government of India, Department of Atomic Energy, CSM Marg, Mumbai 400 001 (As on 31st March 2004) (Member) Shri K. Gnanadesikan, I.A.S., Secretary to Government, Higher Education Department, Government of Tamil Nadu, Fort St. George, Chennai 600 009(As on 31st March 2004) (Member) Prof. R. Balasubramanian, Director, The Institute of Mathematical Sciences, Chennai (Member Secretary) 1.2. EXECUTIVE COUNCIL 3 1.2 Executive Council Prof. S. K. Joshi, Honorary Scientist Emeritus CSIR, Vikram Sarabhai Professor, National Physical Laboratory, Dr. K. S. Krishnan Road, New Delhi 110 012 (Chairman) Prof. Mustansir Barma, Department of Physics, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai 400 005 (Member) Prof. Ravi Kulkarni, Director, Harish Chandra Research Institute, Chhatnag Road, Jhusi, Allahabad 211 019 (Member) Prof. C. S. Seshadri, Director, Chennai Mathematical Institute, Chennai 600 017 (Member) Smt. Sudha Bhave, I.A.S., Joint Secretary to Government of India, Department of Atomic Energy, CSM Marg, Mumbai 400 001 (Member) Shri Rahul Asthana, I.A.S., Joint Secretary (Finance) to Government of India, Department of Atomic Energy, CSM Marg, Mumbai 400 001 (As on 31st March 2004) (Member) Shri K. Gnanadesikan, I.A.S., Secretary to Government, Higher Education Department, Government of Tamil Nadu, Fort St. George, Chennai 600 009 (As on 31st March 2004) (Member) Prof. R. Balasubramanian, Director, The Institute of Mathematical Sciences,Chennai (Member Secretary) 4 CHAPTER 1. THE INSTITUTE 1.3 Faculty Name Userid Tel. Ext. Res. Phone No. Mathematics Balasubramanian, R. balu 201 2259 1626 Kesavan, S kesh 273 2641 2839 Kodiyalam, Vijay vijay 228 2490 2041 Krishna, M. krishna 285 2449 1499 Nagaraj, D. S. dsn 291 2442 1393 Paranjape, Kapil H. kapil 218 2259 3192 Raghavan, K. N. knr 255 2844 6319 Sankaran, P. sankaran 221 2446 0909 Srinivas, K. srini 244 2448 1256 Sunder, V. S. sunder 206 2442 0082 Iyer, Jaya N. 1 jniyer 375 - Prasad, Amritanshu 2 amri 213 - Physics Anishetty, R. ramesha 229 2496 0325 Balakrishnan, Radha radha 203 2257 0387 Baskaran, G. baskaran 233 2448 3504 Basu, Rahul rahul 284 2245 4794, 2245 3297 Chakraborty, T.3 tapash 215 2492 5271 Date, G. shyam 280 2445 0203 Govindarajan, Thupil R. trg 281 2442 2715 Guruprasad Kar 4 --- Hari Dass, N. D. dass 275 2442 2767 Indumathi, D. indu 225 2492 8138 Jagannathan, R. jagan 219 2263 1638 Jayaraman, T. jayaram 248 2492 9527 Kaul, R. kaul 279 2445 3508 Majumdar, Parthasarathi partha 282 2448 0793 Menon, Gautam I. menon 292 2619 4134, 2621 3024 Mishra, Ashok K. mishra 283 2492 5444 Murthy, M. V. N. murthy 227 2257 9342, 2257 0652 Parthasarathy, R. sarathy 214 2223 2021 Rama, S. Kalyana krama 293 2448 2696 Ray, Purusattam ray 231 5215 8773 Sathiapalan, Balachandran bala 278 5215 8742 Shankar, R. shankar 235 2448 1914 Sharatchandra, H. S. sharat 276 2252 1388 Siddharthan, Rahul 5 rsidd 215 - Simon, R. simon 232 2451 0280 Sinha, Rahul sinha 290 2448 2190 1.4. SCIENTIFIC STAFF 5 Name Userid Tel. Ext. Res. Phone No. Sinha, Sudeshna sudeshna 216 2259 1393 Sinha, Sitabhra sitabhra 342 2448 1487 Sridhar, R.