Physics Days is an annual celebration of Physics conducted by the Department of Physical Sciences and associated Centres at IISER Kolkata. This year's celebration focuses on astronomy, astrophysics and space science research pursued by the Center of Excellence in Space Scienes India (CESSI), which has completed 10 years of functioning. An additional theme centres around quantum information and technology pursued at the Physics Department. Several talks by invited speakers and our senior PhD students, and a poster session will provide a flavour of both the national scenario, as well as research highlights from IISER Kolkata.
The Department of Physical Sciences at IISER Kolkata, often called as δ π σ or simply DPS, officially began its journey on 25 June, 2009. While the formative years of DPS have been challenging, our laboratories and research groups have steadily grown in numbers, expertise and ability. We have learnt to leverage our research strengths by collaborating with one another. Our togetherness has yielded yet more: even as we have focused on working on the fundamentals of basic physics, we have enjoyed working in inter-disciplinary areas by joining hands. This is also reflected in a steady output of research publications, a significant number of which are in the very best Physics journals.
Our research portfolio encompasses almost all major areas of physics, exploring ideas and phenomena that range of over several orders of magnitude not only in terms of length but also in energy and time. This ranges from the search for exotic particles inside colliders to understanding the complex phenomenology of a collection of particles placed in extreme conditions (e.g., temperatures, pressures and magnetic fields). Several of us are working towards understanding the basis of life and evolution, order and chaos. While some ponder the mechanics of biological systems, others are working on quantizing gravity and hunting for gravitational waves. Some focus on the magneto-hydrodynamics of the Sun and worry about the weather in space. With a diverse faculty possessing a wide variety of research interests, DPS engenders a truly vibrant atmosphere. Our members seek to pose cutting-edge questions, and answer them adopting a blend of creativity, ingenuity and state-of-the-art research methods.
At DPS, we have committed ourselves to the cause of communicating to and involving our students in the ideas, concepts and excitement of being in the immense and wonderful realm of physics. In addition, our aim is to ensure that when our students graduate, they have in their arsenal the theoretical and experimental tools that will enable them to become successful researchers as well as teachers in their own right. In this, it is our constant endeavour to expose our students to the very best of present-day research methods and practices, in physics as well as in related interdisciplinary fields.
The Center of Excellence in Space Sciences India (CESSI) is a multi-institutional Center of Excellence hosted by the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER) Kolkata and has been established through funding from the Ministry of Education, Government of India. CESSI aims to explore the Sun’s activity, generate the understanding necessary for space weather forecasting, hunt for gravitational waves, support national space science initiatives, participate in international capacity building activities and pursue public-private partnerships in space science research.
Since its inception CESSI has already contributed to major developments in astrophysics and space sciences. Notably, CESSI personnel are associated with the Aditya-L1 mission - India's first space mission to study the Sun. CESSI personnel contributed to the first direct detection of astrophysical gravitational waves from a binary Black Hole merger system and are involved with the LIGO-India mega project which aims to deploy a third gravitational wave detector in India to supplement the observations from the two detectors in the United States of America. CESSI affiliated personnel have also been involved with the planning and installation of India's most advanced ground-based solar telescope - the Multi-application solar telescope at Udaipur Solar Observatory (Physical Research Laboratory) which has been operating since 2015. CESSI faculty are also playing important roles in national and international capacity building through their roles in working groups and committees at the International Astronomical Union (IAU), Committee on Space Research (COSPAR), Scientific Committee on Solar-Terrestrial Physics (SCOSTEP), Astronomical Society of India (ASI) and the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO).
Program Schedule: Click here to download
Invited Speakers
Archana Pai, IIT Bombay, Physics with Gravitational Waves
Utpal Roy, IIT Patna, Quantum & Atom Optics for Quantum Sensing
Sankar Subramaniam, ISRO, AdityaL1 Mission
Durgesh Tripathi, IUCAA, Sun through the Eyes of the Solar Ultraviolet Imaging Telescope
G.C. Anupama, IIA, The Indian Astronomy Vision
Dipankar Banerjee, ARIES, Key Challenged in Solar Physics: An Observational Perspective
A.N. Ramaprakash, IUCAA, Innovative Instrument Concepts for Astronomy
Bhargav Vaidya, IIT Indore, Space Plasmas: Theoretical and Modeling Perspectives
Guest Speakers
Arun Pati, TCG CREST
Prasanta Panigrahi, IISER Kolkata
Student and Postdoc Speakers
Souvik Roy
Tousik Samui
Sk Rajiuddin
Anjan Kumar NM
Arkayan Laha
Amir Subba
Chiranjit Mahato
Ram Nandan Kumar
Jeeban kumar Nayek
Soumya Ghosh
Debajyoti Guha
Sudip Sinha
Souradeep Pal
Poulami Majumdar
Anita Pahi
Soumya Mukherjee
Shaonwita Pal
Saptarshi Saha
CONTACT
dps dot office at iiserkol.ac.in
cessi at iiserkol.ac.in
