34th Annual Report (2021-22)

177 School of Studies in Physics and Astrophysics, Pt. Ravishankar Shukla University, Raipur during April 1, 2021 – March 2022 Coordinator: N. K. Chakradhari Areasof research Researchwork Supernovae, Galaxies and Variable stars etc. UV-optical photometric and spectroscopic study of supernovae is being carried out by N.K. Chakradhari and Shritika Tiwari (Thesis work) in collaboration with G.C. Anupama, D.K. Sahu (IIA, Bengaluru) and Kuntal Misra (ARIES, Nainital). Study of Chemically Peculiar stars/ Variable stars is being carried out in collaboration withS. Joshi (ARIES, Nainital). Study of central region of lenticular galaxies is being carried out by S.K. Pandey, Mahendra Verma (Thesis work) and S. Barwey (IIABengaluru). N.K. Chakradhari is involved in the co- supervision of (i) Massive O-type and WR stars, Thesis work of Ms. Bharti Arora with J. C. Pandey, ARIES, Nainital (ii) Study of GRBs, Thesis work of Ankur Ghosh with Amitesh Omar and Kuntal Misra, ARIES, Nainital. Publicationsbyusing ICARDfacilities Outreach programmes, including public lectures/skywatchetc. 1. Study of chemically peculiar stars - I. High-resolution spectroscopy and K2 photometry of Am stars in the region of M44, Joshi Santosh et al.; Chakradhari N. K. (co-author), 2022, MNRAS,510, 5854. 2. Quest for the Upcoming Periastron Passage of an Episodic Dust Maker and Particle-accelerating Colliding-wind Binary: WR 125, Arora Bharti; Pandey J. C.; De Becker Michaël; Pandey S. B.; Chakradhari Nand K.; Sharma Saurabh; Kumar Brijesh, 2021, AJ, 162, 257. 3. PSN J0910+5003 : A type Ia Supernova e x p l o s i o n s i m i l a r t o S u p e r Chandrasekhar event, Shrutika Tiwari, N. K. Chakradhari, D.K. Sahu, G. C. Anupama presented at 40th annual Meeting of the Astronomical Society of India (ASI 2022) at IIT, Roorkee 25-29March 2022. Invited talks/public lectures (1) “The story of stars”, National Science Day Celebration at Govt College Kurud, 28 February 2022 (2) “Space Science and Technology for a sustainable future”, National Science Day Celebration at Govt. College Dharsiva, 26 February 2022 (3) “India in Space Science”, National Science Day Celebration at Govt. Gundadhur College Kondagaon, 05 February 2022 (4) “Opportunities and Challenges in Physics” at Govt College Rajim, 21 January 2022 (5) “Sun, Season and Sky” at Kalinga University Raipur on 11 December 2021 (6) “Astrophysics – TheWonders of Galaxies” at Vinayakrao Patil Mahavidyalaya, Vaijapur, Aurangabad, 14 September 2021 (7) “Motion of the Sun”, Training workshop on Z e r o Sh a d ow Da y , O r g a n i z e d b y Chhattisgarh VigyanSabha, 15May 2021 Skywatchingprogrammes were organized (1) at SoS in Physics & Astrophysics, Pt R.S. University Raipur (Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav) on 7-8 December 2021 (2) at Savitri Bai Phule Educational Academy Saddu, Raipur on 26 December 2021 (3) at Korba on 11 December 2021. Department of Physics, University of Kashmir, Srinagar during April 1, 2021 – March 2022 Coordinator: Manzoor A. Malik AreasofResearch Researchwork Theoretical Astrophysics, Cosmology, X-ray Astronomy, Galaxy Clusters The department has three permanent faculty members (two Professors and one Associate Professor) in the field of Astronomy and Astrophysics. As on date, the department host 12 research students in Astronomy and Astrophysics alone. Further, there are four ongoing research projects in the area of Astronomy and Astrophysics funded by SERB-DST, ISRO RESPONDetc. Workshop A two day Introductory Workshop on Astronomy and Astrophysics was held in the th th department in hybrid mode on 18 and 19 of December, 2021. The coordinators of the workshop were Naseer Iqbal (local) and Ranjeev Misra (IUCAA). The workshop was attended by around hundred students and young faculty from local universities. While the workshop was conducted offline, some of the resource persons delivered their talks online; these include Somak Raychaudhary (Director), Kanak Saha, Ranjan Gupta, Sanjit Mitra, Durgesh Tripathi all from IUCAA. Some of the local resource persons included me, Naseer Iqbal, Waseem Bari, Bari Maqbool and Zahir Shah. At the end, Ranjeev Misra gave his impressions about the workshop and conducted an online interaction with the participants. Since the workshop was conducted in a period during which COVID was still close to severe, all COVID protocols were followed. Happy to report that none of the participants or resource persons contracted COVID during or immediately after the workshop. Another workshop on Python and Astronomical Data Analysis is scheduled to be held in June 2022.