ISSAC-2024

During Nov 20 – 22, 2024

Venue: St. Stephen’s College, Delhi, India

Hosted by

St. Stephen’s College, Delhi, India &

Celebrating 100th Anniversary of Discoveries in 1924

About St. Stephen's College

St. Stephen's College is an undergraduate college under University of Delhi. It is regarded as the most prestigious undergraduate college in India. Ranked eleventh among colleges in India by the National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) in 2022, the institution has produced distinguished alumni in fields like politics, law, journalism, film and business. St. Stephen's College secured the second place on India Today's 2022 Best Liberal Arts colleges.

Brief history of the college

This college was founded on February 01, 1881. In support of the work of a UK based charitable organization named “United Society Partners in the Gospel” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Society_Partners_in_the_Gospel), the Cambridge Brotherhood (a Cambridge Mission to Delhi: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambridge_Mission_to_Delhi) founded this college named St. Stephen's College. Rev. Allnutt served as the first principal of St. Stephen’s College. The college's first premises were in Chandni Chowk, Delhi, and was affiliated to the University of Calcutta. Later in 1882, it changed its affiliation to Punjab University and moved into premises in Kashmiri Gate, Delhi. University of Delhi was established in 1922, and since then the St. Stephen’s College became affiliated to University Delhi. Below is a photograph of the building of St. Stephen's College.

About The Initiative ISSAC

A group of faculty members (hereafter referred to as ‘ISSAC Core Group’) from various institutions have taken an initiative of organising an international symposium entitled “Internal Symposium on Space-Science, Astrophysics, and Cosmology” at an interval of a few years. The idea is to organise it in any one of the Indian institutions (research institute, university, college, planetarium etc). Whichever institution will host this event will use its logo along with the symposium logo in all the event documents. The symposium logo does not refer to any institution; it refers to the event entitled “International Symposium on Space Science, Astrophysics, and Cosmology”. The ISSAC Core Group consists of the following faculty members. 1) Ghosh Shubhrangshu 2) Hota Ananda 3) Konar Chiranjib 4) Pal Sabyasachi 5) Sethi Geetanjali Anybody from any academic institution can join the ISSAC core group and contribute to this initiative.

Usually, this event can be (but not necessarily has to be) associated with some celebrations, like celebration of 75 years of a scientist, celebration of 100 years of a discovery etc. This years ISSAC is associated with celebration of 100 years of path breaking discoveries in 1924. The details about ISSAC-2024 is given under the section heading “About ISSAC-2024” below.

We will publish formal conference proceedings each time this event will be organized. Moreover, as ISSAC members we will also try to publish any other articles, books, etc. with an objective to disseminate the current scientific results in the field of space science, astronomy and cosmology to the academicians, students, and scientific minded citizens. We will appeal to the people in the scientific community to join us and support this initiative. Anybody finding sponsors for such activity will be highly appreciated.

About the Symposium

The purpose of this symposium is to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the year 1924 which is basically an Annas Mirabilis (miraculous year). In this year, several path-breaking discoveries took place, that shape the modern physics on farm footing. Those discoveries are given below. We will be celebrating Bose’s work in a special way, as he, being an Indian, is a fountain of our inspiration.

a) In 1924 S.N. Bose published a paper deriving black body radiation curve without any reference to classical physics. This seminal paper created the field of quantum statistics. Einstein translated this paper into German and submitted it on Bose's behalf to the Zeitschrift für Physik. We know now the particles following Bose-Einstein statistics are called bosons after Bose’s name.

b) In 1924, Edwin Hubble, using the Hooker Telescope at Mt. Wilson Observatory established that many spiral nebulae (as the spiral galaxies used to be called at that time) including Andromeda, Triangulum were too distant to be part of the Milky Way. Despite the opposition, he published his findings in the news paper The New York Times. Now we know, the rest is history.

c) In his 1924 Ph.D. thesis Louis de Broglie postulated the wave nature of electron (or any quantum particle).

Objectives of the Symposium

The objectives of this symposium are as follows.

1) To get the researchers throughout India updated about recent results from the data of various telescopes already in operations.

2) To raise awareness among the various university faculty members about the upcoming international telescopes and their science goals.

3) To raise awareness among the various university faculty members about India’s participation in international astronomical telescopes and facilities.

4) To raise awareness among the undergraduate and postgraduate students about the current research activities in the world in the field of astronomy, astrophysics and cosmology.

5) To raise awareness among students about the recent trends in the technical knowledge required in the field of astronomy, astrophysics and cosmology.

6) A one-day hands on training session to astronomy data handling for the UG and PG students

Learning Outcomes

The learning outcomes of this events will be as follows.

1) All the researchers will be updated with the recent results from the new data of the telescopes.

2) All the university faculty members will be updated with the information of upcoming telescopes with which they will motivate the current generation of undergraduate and postgraduate students, so that the students take up astronomy as their careers.

3) The undergraduate, postgraduate students from physics, mathematics and engineering field will know how to equip themselves so that they can easily get selected as Ph.D. students in various research institutes and universities.

4) UG and PG Students will learn astronomy data handling in the hands-on session to appreciate astronomy and astrophysics in the observational level.

Topics Covered in the Symposium

1) Physics of Active Galactic Nuclei (AGNs)

2) Solar physics

3) Galaxies and galactic dynamics

4) X-ray binaries, black hole physics, transients

5) Indian participation in Int’l mega projects in astronomy and astrophysics (SKA, TMT, LIGO) and the science goals.

6) Science goals of other international projects (e.g., ALMA, EHT or any other)

7) Science goals of Indian national projects: GMRT, ASTROSAT, Chandrayaan, etc.)

8) Computational Astrophysics

9) Cosmology

Organizing Committee

Patrons

1) John Varghese (Dr.), Professor & Principle of St. Stephen’s College, Delhi, India

Conveners

Konar Chiranjib, Department of Physics, AIAS, Amity University, Noida, India

Sethi Geetanjali, Department of Physics, St. Stephen’s College, Delhi, India

Contact: int.symp.sac@gmail.com

Local organizing committee

1) Deo Aditya Pratap (IQAC), St. Stephen’s College, Delhi

2) Gupta Rekha, St. Stephen’s College, Delhi, India

3) Konar Chiranjib, AIAS, Amity Univ., Noida, India

4) Malhotra Annu, St. Stephen’s College, Delhi, India

5) Rana Akshay, St. Stephen’s College, Delhi, India

6) Sachdeva Sangeeta, St. Stephen’s College, Delhi (Chair)

7) Sethi Geetanjali, St. Stephen’s College, Delhi, India

8) Thakur Shruti, St. Stephen’s College, Delhi, India

9) Unnikrishnan Sanil, St. Stephen’s College, Delhi, India

Scientific advisory committee

1) Bagchi Jaydeep, Christ University, Bangaluru, India

2) Chandra Suresh, ACAA, AIAS, Amity University, Noida, India

3) Rao A.R., TIFR, Mumbai, India (Co-chair)

4) Saikia D. J., IUCAA, Pune, India (Chair)

5) Singal Ashok (Retd), PRL, Ahmedabad, India

Scientific organizing committee

1) Das Gupta Patrick, University of Delhi, Delhi, India

2) Ghosh Shubhrangshu, SRM-Sikkim, Gangtok, Sikkim, India

3) Hardcastle Martin, University of Hertfordshire, UK

4) Hota Ananda, UM-DAE CEBS, Mumbai, India; RAD@home, India

5) Jamrozy Marek, O.A.U.J., Krakow, Poland

6) Konar Chiranjib, AIAS, Amity University, Noida, India (convener)

7) Mukhopadhyay Banibrata, IISc, Bangaluru, India (Chair)

8) Pal Sabyasachi, Midnapur City College, Midnapur, W.B., India

9) Sethi Geetanjali, St. Stephen’s College, Delhi, Noida (convener)

10) Wang Wei-Hao, ASIAA, Taipei, Taiwan, India

11) Zdziarski Andrzej, Nicolaus Copernicus Institute, Warsaw, Poland.

Plenary & Invited Speakers (The list of those who confirmed till now. Some more will be added after confirmation.)

1 Audibert Anelise, Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias, Spain

2 Bagchi Jaydeep, Christ University, Bangaluru, India

3 Banerjee Dipankar, Director, ARIES, Nainital, India

4 Chandra Suresh, ACAA, AIAS, Amity University, Noida, India

5 Chattopadhyay Indranil, ARIES, Nainital, India

6 Dabhade Pratik, IAC, Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain

7 Das Gupta Patrick, University of Delhi, Delhi, India

8 Deshpande Avinash, IUCAA, Pune, India

9 Dewangan Gulab Chand, IUCAA, Pune, India

10 Girish V., ISRO, Bangaluru, India

11 Gupta Yashwant, Centre Director, NCRA, Pune, India

12 Jain Pankaj, IIT-Kanpur, Kanpur, India

13 Jamrozy, Marek, O.A.U.J., Krakow, Poland

14 Misra Ranjeev, IUCAA, Pune, India

15 Mukhopadhyay Banibrata, IISc, Bangaluru, India

16 Rama Devi M.C., ISRO, Bangaluru, India

17 Rao A.R., TIFR, Mumbai, India

18 Roy Nirupam, IISc., Bangaluru, India

19 Saikia D.J., IUCAA, Pune, India

20 Sankhyayan Shirshir, Tartu Observatory, Estonia

21 Sharma Prateek, IISc, Bangaluru, India

22 Singal Ashok (Retd), PRL, Ahmedabad, India

23 Souradeep,Tarun Director, RRI, Bangaluru, India

24 Stalin C.S., IIA, Bangaluru, India

25 Subrahmanyam Annapurni, Director, IIA, Bangalore

26 Tendulkar Shriharsh, DAA, TIFR, Mumbai, India

27 Thorat Kshitij, University of Pretoria, South Africa

28 Wang Wei-Hao, ASIAA, Taipei, Taiwan

29 Zdziarski Andrzej, Nicolaus Copernicus Institute, Warsaw, Poland

About Delhi City Where The Event Will Be Held

Delhi is an old place with historical significance. Historical landmarks in this region manifests the richness of ancient and medieval Indian civilization rich in art and architecture.

Delhi, officially the National Capital Territory (NCT) of Delhi, is a city and a union territory of India containing New Delhi, the capital of India, lying on both sides of the Yamuna River. Although a union territory, the political administration of the NCT of Delhi today more closely resembles that of a state of India. The topography of the medieval fort ‘Purana Qila’ on the banks of the river Yamuna matches the literary description of the citadel Indraprastha in the Sanskrit epic Mahabharata. From the early 13th century until the mid-19th century, Delhi was the capital of two major empires, the Delhi Sultanate and the Mughal Empire, which covered large parts of South Asia. Three UNESCO World Heritage Sites in the city are:

1) Qutub Minar

2) Humayun's Tomb

3) Red Fort.

All of them were built in the period between early 13 century and mid 19-th century. From 1911, New Delhi became the capital of British Indian Empire. After achieving independence in 1947, New Delhi (which is a part of Delhi) remained the capital of India till today. Delhi ranks fifth among the Indian states and union territories in human development index, has the second-highest per capita GDP in India (after Goa). Metro rail transport well connects many places in entire Delhi and the nearby satellite cities.

Other historic sites to visit are India Gate, Lahori gate, Digambar Jain Mandir with Gauri Shankar temple in the background, St. James' Church, Hyderabad House, Lotus Temple, Jama Masjid.

Description of the picture on the right: From top to bottom: Panel-1: Humayun’s tomb, Panel-2 (left): Qutub Minar, Panel-2 (right): Jama Masjid, Panel-3 (left): Red Fort, Panel-3 (right): India Gate, Panel-4 (left): Digambar Jain Mandir, Panel-4 (right): St. James’ Church, Panel-5 (left): Hyderabad House, Panel-5 (right): Lotus Temple.

[Ref: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delhi ]

Description of the above picture: From top to bottom: Panel-1: Humayun’s tomb, Panel-2 (left): Qutub Minar, Panel-2 (right): Jama Masjid, Panel-3 (left): Red Fort, Panel-3 (right): India Gate, Panel-4 (left): Digambar Jain Mandir, Panel-4 (right): St. James’ Church, Panel-5 (left): Hyderabad House, Panel-5 (right): Lotus Temple. [Ref: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delhi ]

Important Dates & Registration

1) Preregistration & Abstract Submission Opens on: Jun 15, 2024 at 00:00 hr IST

2) Preregistration & Abstract Submission Deadline: Jul 15, 2024 at 23:59 hr IST

(Link: https://forms.gle/K28f6hHY7hpP4rHF9 )

3) Decision on Selected Abstract On: Aug 15, 2024

4) Registration Opens On: Aug 16, 2024 at 00:00 hr IST

5) Deadline for Registration and Regn Fees Payment: Sep 15, 2024 at 23:59 hr IST

(Link: https://forms.gle/74fed5GURak1Pb9u9 )

Registration fees:

Rs. 3000/- ($60.00 for non-Indian) per person for faculty members

Rs. 2500/- ($50.00 for non-Indian) per person for Ph.D. students and postdoctoral fellows and UG & PG students

Rs. 1500/- ($40.00 for non-Indian) per accompanying person