6th to 8th January 2018 Tirupati, Andhra Pradesh, India e-Conspectus: ISAMP-TC7, Tirupati, 6—8 January 2018 Table of Contents Welcome notes: Director, IISER Tirupati ....................................................... ii Director, IIT Tirupati ....................................................... iii President, ISAMP ....................................................... iv Conveners, ISAMP-TC7 ....................................................... v ISAMP: History, Objectives, Executive Committee ....................................................... vi Conferences organised by ISAMP ....................................................... vii Advisory Committee ....................................................... viii Scientific Advisory Committee ....................................................... viii Organising Committees ....................................................... ix Program Schedule ....................................................... xi List of Abstracts ....................................................... xiii Abstracts: Keynote Addresses ....................................................... 2 Invited Speakers ....................................................... 5 Contributed Speakers ....................................................... 48 Posters ....................................................... 60 About Tirupati, IISER & IIT Tirupati ....................................................... b Maps of Tirupati with important contacts ....................................................... e e-Conspectus: ISAMP-TC7, Tirupati, 6—8 January 2018 Welcome note: Director, IISER Tirupati The 7th Topical Conference of the Indian Society of Atomic and Molecular Physics is being jointly hosted by the IISER Tirupati and the IIT Tirupati. Both these institutions began functioning with the first batch of students admitted from August 2015. It is thus a matter of great pride that in just a very few years, we are able to jointly organize a major conference of the ISAMP in our institutions. It is most appropriate that our first joint conference is in the very fundamental field of atomic and molecular physics which developed hand-in-hand with the quantum theory in the 20th century. This field continues to provide an arch over all of the basic sciences. Developments in this field continue to provide breakthroughs in both basic and applied sciences. Atoms and molecules provide the basic building blocks of all inorganic and even biological species. The physics of these constituents is very challenging since all fundamental processes are governed by quantum theory and relativistic mechanics. Studies in these areas have also led to major breakthroughs in new materials, including new states of matter such as the Bose-Einstein Condensates. Advanced topics in the quantum collision physics and spectroscopy will be dealt with at the ISAMP-TC7. Among many advanced topics, the conference will also address fundamental ultrafast processes including at the attosecond time-scale. It is heartening that experts from near and far parts of India, and also from many other parts of the world from the far East, to the far West, will be presenting their research works. A very good number of young researchers are also at this conference presenting their results. They will take home new ideas and provide leadership in the years and decades to come. This symposium jointly organised by IISER and IIT at Tirupati will be prelude to jointly organising meetings in other areas as well. I wish the conference every success. Professor K. N. Ganesh Director, Indian Institute of Science Education and Research Tirupati ii e-Conspectus: ISAMP-TC7, Tirupati, 6—8 January 2018 Welcome note: Director, IIT Tirupati I am very happy that our two new institutions – IISER Tirupati and IIT Tirupati are jointly hosting the 7th edition of the Topical Conference of the Indian Society of Atomic and Molecular Physics. Both our institutions have the great advantage of leveraging each other’s strengths and resources with the shared legacy that we have including – co-location (permanent campuses located 3 km apart), common foundation stone ceremony, launch of academic programs in August 2015 etc. Tirupati is developing as an education hub, and as a smart city. It is most appropriate that the two leading science and technology institutions in the region have come together to jointly host the Conference. Breakthroughs in technology can come only from innovative engineering, which in turn can only be enabled by advances in fundamental sciences. Computing, networking, data storage and retrieval, communication engineering, as well as the necessity to have sustainable environment friendly ecosystem requires new engineering materials, and also new processes. These can only be discovered and invented in the research laboratories in the field of basic sciences. The field of atomic and molecular physics provides the fundamental laboratory from which many innovations have been made, and tested, before new materials and processes could be scaled up for fruitful technology. The response that this conference has got is awesome. It has attracted distinguished scientists from within India and from many countries in the world. These include many world leaders in the field working in frontier research areas. Many young researchers from all parts of the country are coming for this conference, and they will present their own research, and also take back new ideas to work on. Some of these may provide important breakthroughs for engineering and technology. I join the organizing committee members in welcoming the conference delegates to Tirupati and our institutions. I wish the conference a great success. Professor K. N. Satyanarayana Director, Indian Institute of Technology Tirupati iii e-Conspectus: ISAMP-TC7, Tirupati, 6—8 January 2018 Welcome note: President, ISAMP Dear Members of the Society and Delegates, It is with great pleasure that I welcome you all to the seventh Topical Conference of the Society. The topical conferences began as small affairs, with a somewhat regional flavour, and over the years have grown in popularity, and have also seen participation of delegates from abroad. I trust that the current conference will meet or exceed your expectations as to the quality of the contributions and the spectrum of colleagues that you will be meeting. The topics of this conference are a good reflection of the gradual change in the focus of atomic and molecular physics research. You will also notice that participants in this conference are a healthy mix of junior and senior colleagues. We have tried our best to support the participation of students in this conference. IISER Tirupati and IIT Tirupati came to be the choice of venue for this meeting largely thanks to the initiative of Prof P C Deshmukh, who first proposed the plan. My own close association with IISER Tirupati bolstered it and the proposal got a decisive boost with the financial and Institutional support from Director, IISER Tirupati, Prof K N Ganesh, and Director, IIT Tirupati, Prof K N Satyanarayana. This conference happens to be the first national conference to be held here, and will therefore occupy a special place in the history of IISER Tirupati and IIT Tirupati. On behalf of the Society I thank both Directors and the faculty and staff of these Institutions for their whole-hearted support to the organisation of the conference. Welcome once again, and enjoy the conference! Bhas Bapat President, ISAMP iv e-Conspectus: ISAMP-TC7, Tirupati, 6—8 January 2018 Welcome note: Conveners, ISAMP-TC7 We are delighted that the ISAMP TC7 has come to our sister institutions, the IISER and the IIT, at Tirupati. Thank you very much for coming from all over India, and also for coming from distant parts of the world. We are really extremely happy to have you here. We shall have 53 talks at the conference, but some of these will be in parallel sessions, so we urge you to go through the program schedule in advance and plan which talks you wish to attend. On each of the three days of the meeting, we shall have a poster session between lunch break and the tea break. This provides for extended periods for the poster sessions, overlapping with the lunch and the tea break. It will be great if delegates go back refreshed from this conference with some new research ideas which we hope will come out of the discussions. In order that the research work you would present at the conference gets into scientific literature, we have arranged for the proceedings of ISAMP-TC7 to be published as SPRINGER CONFERENCE PROCEEDINGS. Publishing in this special volume will make your work accessible to researchers in the years come. ISAMP-TC7 has become possible because of the generous support and guidance from Professor K. N. Ganesh (Director, IISER T) and from Professor K. N. Satyanarayana (Director, IIT T). Very many staff and faculty members at the IISER-T and the IIT-T have put in huge effort in organizing fine details with regard to various arrangements. Lapses however will be found, and these can be easily traced to the two of us. The members of the organizing committee are listed in this e-Book, and we have no words to thank them. Even if it will be unfair to mention only one of them, we wish to place on record our gratitude and admiration to Dr. S. Sunil Kumar, the Conference Secretary, for superb coordination of all activities. We are also very grateful to NPTEL for video- recording the two keynote addresses, by Professor