Work
Minor Project - Daksha
The ongoing project is aimed at replicating and assessing Daksha's ability to identify Black body spectrum in Gamma-Ray Bursts (GRBs). The guidance for the project is provided by Dr. Shabnam Iyyani (IISER TVM).
The Daksha initiative proposes the development of two advanced space telescopes dedicated to investigating explosive astrophysical phenomena such as Gamma-Ray Bursts (GRBs) and electromagnetic counterparts to gravitational wave (GW) sources. Each telescope will feature three sensor types, covering an energy range from 1 keV to > 1 MeV. Positioned on opposite sides of Earth, the two Daksha satellites will significantly enhance coverage compared to existing missions. Over a five-year mission duration, Daksha aims to detect thousands of gamma-ray bursts and numerous high-energy counterparts to binary neutron star mergers.
In a very classical picture, one would expect to observe black body radiation from the photosphere and non-thermal emission from certain regions. The prevalence of black body nature varies, with it often being subdominant and, in some instances, not observed at all. This is one of the reasons why we have various GRB models. So the question we are trying to answer is will Daksha's improved sensitivity enables it to accurately identify and capture details of black body spectrum if it sees one.
SEDM-KP
Summer Internship with Dr Michael Coughlin (UMN)
Principal investigator (PI) - Prof Shrinivas R. Kulkarni (Caltech)
Transient astronomy has been transformed recently by wide-field optical surveys, like the Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF), and the very large time-domain data sets they produce. Coupled with the start of the International Gravitational-wave Network's fourth observing run in May 2023, many extragalactic transients will be identified within the localization regions of these gravitational-wave sources, requiring follow-up photometry and spectroscopy.
SEDMv2 is the ideal facility to perform this follow-up campaign: its low-resolution IFU is specifically designed to amass a large number of transient spectra, with an imaging channel for fainter sources. This project will look to
1) Automate the target identification, allowing SEDMv2 to rapidly follow-up triggers with significantly less time investment from its members; and
2) Aid in the automated reduction / fitting pipelines which have the significant potential for being expanded to rapidly and photometrically identify specific types of transients, e.g., rare transients like kilonovae.
A search for Kilonova
Summer Internship with Dr Shabnam Iyyani (IISER TVM)
This ongoing research project involves me analyzing uncataloged ZTF transient data to identify and compare its properties with the expected characteristics of Kilonova emission
Correlation Function Analysis
This is a 6-month project that is part of the HSF India CERN program. The project is being supervised by Archana Radhakrishnan from TIFR and Brij Kishor Jashal from TIFR, with David Lange from Princeton University serving as the principal investigator (PI).
Form factors are important quantities that can be calculated in Lattice QCD to know about the interactions of hadrons with electro-weak currents. They are calculated from the time dependence of three-point correlation functions.
When there are multiple form factors involved the analysis gets a little tricky because the time-dependence of many three-point functions has to be fit. After this, depending on the symmetries, some form factors involved in different combinations of hadrons and currents in the three-point functions are similar. This linear system has to be solved. To extract the form factor.
The idea of this project is to develop a generic software layer on top of the existing frameworks that can perform the fits and solve the system of equations to get multiple form factors from three-point correlation functions in lattice QCD.
IKS project
Vishachikitsa-based study to identify plants in Kerala with Potential Antivenomous Properties with Dr Sandhya Ganesan (IISER TVM)
Secured the prestigious Indian Knowledge Systems (IKS) grant from the Central Government of India,
facilitating advanced research in the domain of indigenous knowledge and its integration with
contemporary practices to foster cultural preservation and sustainable development