Research

Since my first year of PhD, I  had been a part of the core team of GROWTH-India. During my second year, I worked on the data reduction pipeline of this telescope. In parallel, I was leading the student team that automated the operations of the telescope. GIT is now a fully robotic telescope, all thanks to the hard-working team of students and very helpful mentors in the form of Prof. Varun Bhalerao and Prof. G.C. Anupama. Please find detailed work on GIT automation and regular operations here.

My primary science interest in astronomy are kilonovae: the optical counterpart of the gravitational wave merger events. When compact object merges, they produce detectable  gravitational waves. If one of the object is a neutron star it also produce electromagnetic emission. With the help of this EM emission, especially the optical counterpart kilonova, I am trying to answer the long standing mystery of origin of heavy elements in the Universe. 

Gamma-ray bursts are fascinating, powerful jets of high energy. These are one the brightest events since the popular BigBang. At IIT Bombay, I studied the optical afterglow of these events with the GROWTH-India Telescope. This work includes the rapid triggering of GIT on such events to get very early insights into such events and study their complex behavior. I discovered the most delayed time flaring from a Gamma-ray burst event to date. I am continuing the GRB research at Harvard University The details of this work can be found here