IITH scientists within InPTA paving way to charting interstellar weather

The research which we are doing should motivate young students to take up careers in science and engineering, said IITH Director. 

The Indian Pulsar Timing Array (InPTA) recently published its first official data release, critical for charting the interstellar ‘weather’ and paving the way to the discovery in the near future.  

Prof Shantanu Desai from the physics department of Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Hyderabad, PhD student Aman Srivastava, BTech student Divyansh Kharbanda, and IITH alumnus Raghav Girgaonkar have co-authored the article which recently got published in ‘Astronomical Society of Australia’. 

The data release stems from three and a half years of observation using the upgraded Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope (uGMRT) near Pune. The Indo-Japanese team of 38 radio-astronomers measures delays in the arrival of radio pulses from special types of neutron stars called millisecond pulsars, which are crucial for the discovery of low-frequency gravitational waves.  

InPTA has joined hands with similar teams from the United States, Europe and Australia to detect these tiny, elusive ripples in spacetime, named nanohertz gravitational waves. 

IIT Hyderabad Director Prof BS Murty, said “The research which we are doing should motivate young students to take up careers in science and engineering. The InPTA collaboration involves both Indian and Japanese scientists working at multiple institutes and people at all levels (faculty, PhD students, postdocs, UG students, Engineers, Computing professionals etc.) who have actively contributed towards it. 

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