Indian Institute of Astrophysics Annual Report 2019-2020 INDIAN INSTITUTE OF ASTROPHYSICS ANNUAL REPORT 2019-2020 c Edited by: Maheswar. G & G. C. Anupama c Published on behalf of: The Director, Indian Institute of Astrophysics, Sarjapura Road, Bengaluru 560034, INDIA c Front Cover: Center: The twin telescopes of the Ulta-Violet Imaging Tele- scope (UVIT). Images obtained with the UVIT, Clockwise from the top: The Jellyfish Galaxy, JO201; The Barred Spiral Galaxy, NGC 2336; The Spiral Galaxy, NGC 300 (Caldwell 70); The Great Barred Spiral Galaxy, NGC 1365; The Globular Cluster, NGC 5466; The Dwarf Spiral Galaxy, IC 2574. (The UVIT project is led by the Indian Institute of Astrophysics, Bengaluru, in collaboration with the Inter University Center for Astronomy and Astrophysics, Pune, the Tata Institute of Fun- damental Research, Mumbai, several centers of ISRO and the Canadian Space Agency. Image Credit: UVIT team and the Payload operations centre at IIA). c Back Cover: The 1.0 m class Thermo-Vac facility at Prof. M. G. K. Menon Laboratory for Space Sciences, CREST Campus (IIA), Hosakote. Image credit: VELC Team. c Cover design: Anand. M. N Printed & Processed by: Vykat Prints Private Limited, Bangalore Contents Page Governing Council (2019–2020) 1 1 Year-In-Review 6 2 Research 10 2.1 The Sun and the Solar System ............................ 10 2.2 Stellar and Galactic Astrophysics .......................... 11 2.3 Cosmology and Extragalactic Astronomy ...................... 16 2.4 Theoretical Physics and Astrophysics ........................ 20 2.5 Experimental Astrophysics and Instrumentation .................. 23 3 Student Programmes and Training Activities 25 3.1 PhD Degree Awarded ................................. 25 3.2 PhD Theses Submitted ................................ 27 3.3 Completion of MTech programme .......................... 28 3.4 School in Physics and Astrophysics ......................... 28 3.5 Visiting Students Programme ............................ 30 3.6 Student participation in National Meetings / Workshops / Conferences ..... 30 3.7 Awards and Recognition ............................... 33 4 Instruments and Facilities 34 4.1 System Engineering Group .............................. 34 4.2 Observatories ..................................... 35 4.2.1 Indian Astronomical Observatory (IAO) .................. 35 4.2.2 Merak site at Ladakh ............................. 36 4.2.3 Centre for Research and Education in Science and Technology (CREST) 37 4.2.4 Kodaikanal Observatory ........................... 38 4.2.5 Vainu Bappu Observatory .......................... 38 4.2.6 Gauribidanur Radio Observatory ...................... 41 4.3 Ultra-Violet Imaging Telescope ........................... 42 4.4 Computational Facilities ............................... 42 4.5 Library ......................................... 44 i 4.6 Facilities Developed for Other Organisations .................... 46 5 Future Facilities 48 5.1 The Thirty Meter Telescope ............................. 48 5.2 Visible Emission Line Coronagraph on Aditya-L1 ................. 53 5.3 Seed Funded Project: Indian Spectroscopic and Imaging Space Telescope .... 58 5.4 National Large Solar Telescope ........................... 59 5.5 National Large Optical - Near Infrared Telescope ................. 60 5.6 Prototype segmented mirror telescope ........................ 60 5.7 Maunakea Spectroscopic Explorer .......................... 62 6 Public Outreach 63 6.1 Annular Solar Eclipse on 26 December 2019 .................... 63 6.2 National Science Day Celebrations ......................... 63 6.3 Joint Outreach Programmes ............................. 66 6.4 Teacher Training programme ............................. 67 6.5 Visits of school students and general public to IIA campuses ........... 67 7 Other scientific activities 69 7.1 Talks given in National/International Meetings outside IIA ............ 69 7.2 Awards, Recognition, Professional Membership, Editorship etc. .......... 75 7.3 Externally Funded Projects ............................. 75 7.4 Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) ...................... 76 7.5 Workshops, Conferences and Schools ........................ 77 8 Publications 80 8.1 In Journals ...................................... 80 8.2 Conference Proceedings ................................ 91 8.3 Technical Reports, Monographs, Circulars, ATel .................. 94 8.4 HCT Publications by non-IIA Users ......................... 95 9 Colloquia/Seminars Given By Visitors 97 9.1 Colloquia ....................................... 97 9.2 Seminars ........................................ 97 9.3 Special Lectures ....................................101 10 Miscellaneous 102 10.1 Official Language Implementation (OLI) ......................102 10.2 Welfare of SC/ST Staff & Physically Challenged ..................103 10.3 Committee against Sexual Harassment .......................103 11 People 104 12 Auditors’ Report & Statement Of Accounts 106 ii Governing Council (2019–2020) Prof. A. C. Pandey Chairman Director, IUAC, New Delhi Shri V. Koteswara Rao Member Former Director ASTROSAT, ISRO Prof. S. K. Ghosh Member Former Centre Director, NCRA, Pune Dr. Anil Bhardwaj Member Director, PRL, Ahmedabad Dr. Anil K. Pandey Member Former Director, ARIES, Nainital Dr. Somak Raychaudhury Member Director, IUCAA, Pune Secretary, DST or his nominee Member FA, DST or his nominee Member Director, IIA Member Secretary 1 Honorary Fellows Dr. K. KASTURIRANGAN Raman Research Institute, Bangalore, India Professor B. V. SREEKANTAN (until demise on 27.10.2019) National Institute of Advanced Studies, Indian Institute of Science Campus Bangalore 560 012, India Professor DAVID L LAMBERT Department of Astronomy, RLM 16.204 University of Texas, Austin, TX 78712-1083, USA Professor Sir. ARNOLD WOLFENDALE, FRS Department of Physics, Durham University, South Road, Durham, DH1 3LE, UK Professor P. BUFORD PRICE Physics Department, University of California Berkeley, CA 94720, USA †Professor S. CHANDRASEKHAR, Nobel Laureate (1995) †Professor R. M. WALKER, FRS (2004) †Professor HERMANN BONDI, FRS (2005) †Professor V. RADHAKRISHNAN (2011) †Professor M. G. K. MENON, FRS (2016) †deceased 2 Institute Functionaries Empty Empty Empty Empty Director Professor Annapurni Subramaniam Empty Empty Empty Empty Dean Professor G. C. Anupama Empty Empty Empty Empty Chairperson: GC-I: Sun and Solar System Professor S. P. Rajaguru Empty Empty Empty Empty Chairperson: GC-II: Stars and Galaxies Professor Aruna Goswami Empty Empty Empty Empty Chairperson: GC-III: Theoretical Astrophysics Professor Arun Mangalam 3 Indian Institute of Astrophysics Empty Empty Empty Empty Head: System Engineering Group Mr. P. K. Mahesh Empty Empty Empty Empty Chairperson: Board of Graduate Studies Dr. U. S. Kamath Empty Empty Empty Empty Administrative Officer Mr. Shripathi. K Empty Empty Empty Empty First Appellate Authority Professor R. Ramesh Empty Empty Empty Empty Central Public Information Officer Mr. P. K. Mahesh Empty Empty Empty Empty Vigilance Officer Dr. U. S. Kamath 4 Indian Institute of Astrophysics Empty Empty Empty Chairperson: Internal Complaints Committee against Sexual Harassment & Grievance Cell Professor Aruna Goswami Empty Empty Empty Empty Chairperson: Outreach Committee Dr. Chrisphin Karthick IIA Campus at Bengaluru 5 1 Year-In-Review As the Director of the Institute from Octo- white dwarf companions to stars in open and ber 2019, it gives me great pleasure to sum- globular clusters, abundance of lithium, car- marise the highlights of the Institute dur- bon and slow neutron capture elements in ing 2019-20. The institute with its facilities stars in relation to their evolution are some spread across the country and sky, is engaged of the highlights. in scientific research and developments in as- In extragalactic astronomy and cos- tronomy, astrophysics and related fields, as- mology, generating a catalog containing the tronomical instrumentation, student training, largest collection of spectroscopically con- engaging with the public at large and partic- firmed quasars, quenching of star formation ipation in mega-projects. in bars of galaxies, dynamical mass estima- Research: In Solar Physics, studies of tion of face-on galaxies, young radio galaxies, the Solar magnetic field were carried out in star formation in dwarf galaxies are some active regions on the Sun. The spectropo- of the highlights. The researchers obtained larimeter at the Tunnel Telescope of the data from the ground based telescopes of the Kodaikanal Solar Observatory was used to Institute, as well as ASTROSAT, the first study the structure and height variations of Indian space observatory, supplemented with sunspots. Using the Multi-Application Solar multi-wavelength data from other national Telescope at the Udaipur Solar Observatory and international facilities. Interesting re- and employing the Fizeau Mark Interfer- sults were obtained with the GROWTH-India ometry of Solar Features, high-resolution telescope as the facility successfully followed observations of the Sun were performed. up a few gravitational wave alerts from On the theoretical front, an iterative tech- LIGO-VIRGO collaboration. Theoretical nique was developed to solve the problem modelling of the observations using state of of polarized line formation in a magnetized the art models/codes were also carried out. isothermal atmosphere. The theoretical group carried out re- In stellar and Galactic astrophysics, search in black hole astrophysics, quantum ejection of protostars from their