36th Annual Report (2023-24)

79 AnupreetaMore Citizen Science: Gravitational lens discoveries at your fingertips , (public talk), National Science Day, IUCAA, Pune, India, February 2024. Gravitational lensing Experiments , (talk), Astronomy Themed Experiments, IUCAA, Pune, India, August 2023. A series of Public Talks on " LIGOand role of LIGO-India ” in the region of Satara, Islampur and Kolhapur, India, March 2023. NishantSingh Fluid Dynamics: Astrophysical Flows and Magnetic Fields, Frontiers inPhysics XVII, FergussonCollege, Pune, March 14, 2024. T.P.Singh Is there dark matter in the universe? (online) Symposium on space physics and astrophysics, St. Teresa College, Ernakulam, December 14 - 15, 2023. Flat galaxy rotation curves: darkmatter, or a new law of gravitation? (online) Workshop on Cosmology, Kerala University, August 3 - 4, 2023 (online talk); SVNIT Surat, October 2023. Gravitation and quantum theory as emergent phenomena , Bharata Mata College, Kochi, (online talk in a one-day meeting on `Life and Science of ThanuPadmanabhan'), March 23, 2024. SurhudMore Difference between Astronomy and Astrology, 'Soppa Karun Sangto with Suvrat, VishayKhol', (in Marathi) February 2024, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKc7UhK5nQI. Debarati Chatterjee Work featured along with an invited article published in the special issue (Jan-June 2023) of Physics News, showcasing the cutting- edge research of young women physicists in India. Physics News is a newsletter published by the Indian Physics Association (IPA). The special issue can be found at: https://www.tifr.res.in/~ipa1970/news/V53-12/PN_V53- 12.html S. V. Dhurandhar International DetectionCommittee for Pulsar Timing Array groups: Gravitational waves (GW) have been detected by ground-based laser interferometric detectors in 2015. The astrophysical sources (k) RADIO/TVPROGRAMME [l] P R O F E S S I ON A L A C H I E V EME N T S / DISTINCTIONS detected so far are mergers of stellar-mass black holes or neutron star binary systems. These detectors observe GW in the high- frequency band of tens of Hz to kHz. However, there are other possible methods to detect and observe gravitational waves. The Pulsar Timing Array (PTA) consists of monitoring the timing residuals of nearby millisecond pulsars using radio telescopes to detect gravitational waves. The waves PTA can observe are of very low frequencies in the range of 10 - 100nano-Hz. The specific source the PTA groups are targeting is the stochastic background of gravitational waves from supermassive black holes. So far there is no confirmed detection, although there is possible evidence for such sources. However, it is believed that confirmed detection is not far off. I (by nomination) am part of the International Detection Committee consisting of 8 members from various countries around the world. The International Pulsar Timing Array (IPTA) Consortium currently consists of four PTAs: (i) the North American PTA (NANOGrav) (ii) the Australian PTA (PPTA), (iii) the European PTA (EPTA) and (iv) the IndianPTA (InPTA). The task of the Detection Committee was to provide support and advice relating to claims of gravitational wave background detection to the PTA groups belonging to the IPTA. The detection committee has prepared a checklist of requirements any claims of detection must fulfil. The committee was tasked with vetting the papers from the different PTA groups and scrutinising them if any detection claims could bemade. RajeshwariDutta Awarded 100 Hubble Space Telescope orbits for the program “Characterizing Lyman-Alpha emitters with Snapshot Survey (CLASS)” (Principal Investigator: Rajeshwari Dutta). Neeraj Gupta Principle Investigator: MeerKAT Absorption Line Survey (MALS). Co-Chair of the SKA International HI WorkingGroup. Co-Chair of the Pulsars and HI Absorption Science Working Group: Hydrogen Intensity andReal-time Analysis eXperiment (HIRAX). ShasvathKapadia The following collaborative work with colleagues at ICTS-TIFR was selected as the Editor's Suggestion inPhysical ReviewLetters (PRL). Souvik Jana, Shasvath J. Kapadia, Tejaswi Venumadhav, Parameswaran Ajith, Cosmography using strongly lensed gravitational waves from binary black holes , arXiv:2211.12212, PRL, 130, 261401, (2023). Varun Sahni Member of the International Organizing Committee of the fifth ZeldovichMeeting, Yerevan, Armenia, June 2023. Member of the Pipeline Calibration and Science VerificationWorking Group: 4MOST AGNsurvey. Member of the SKA IndiaHI working group.