Indian enterprise, Indian Pulsar Timing Array (InPTA), formally joined IPTA as a full member. InPTA is a collaboration of about 25 research scientists and students from 15 institutes in India and abroad. Shantanu Desai, Associate Professor, Department of Physics, Raghav Girgaonkar (BTech in Engineering Physics) and Ashwin Pandey (B.Tech in Mech. Engg.) Are currently part of this prestigious collaboration from IIT Hyderabad. The collaboration also includes one IITH alumna, Suryarao Bethapudi (BTech Engg. Physics, badge of 2018), and is currently a PhD student in MPIFR, Germany. InPTA uses the uGMRT, run by the National Center for Astrophysics Radio of Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, to monitor about 6 to 20-millisecond pulsars from 2015.
Recently, this consortium of mostly Indian researchers who regularly recruit the Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope (uGMRT), which is near Pune, became a full member of the effort between -national to detect and analyze very low gravity waves from monster black holes orbiting each other in orbit.
The world’s largest radio telescopes are routinely used by an international test, called the International Pulsar Timing Array (IPTA), to accurately measure the clock times of a collection of these radio pulses. The unique frequency range of the uGMRT, the largest steerable radio telescope at low radio frequencies, helps improve IPTA accuracy to detect nanohertz GWs. Once discovered, these waves refresh evolutionary models of our universe as well as the masses and orbits of members of our solar system and open a new window of GW astronomy. These clocks are monitored between 300 – 800 MHz by the uGMRT, which is not covered by other large IPTA telescopes. The introduction of uGMRT will allow the removal of the delay introduced by the interstitial medium in reaching radio beats from these Galactic clocks by a factor of 5. more precisely than before, which should be crucial to improve IPTA accuracy. Therefore, the InPTA and uGMRT are likely to play a major role in the future detection of nanohertz GWs and gravitational astronomy by these waves.
“IITH has been part of the Indian Pulsar timing field since 2017. Our students participate in the data collection using the unique capabilities of the uGMRT and play an important role in ongoing data analysis in partnership with NCRA-TIFR. Now that we are part of the global international search for nanoHz gravitational waves, it provides ample opportunities for IITH students from science as well as engineering background to join the effort. global to join this research and make innovative discoveries. In addition, the involvement of IITH in the detection of nanoHz gravitational waves would make it a leading institute for astronomy and cosmology. I look forward to working with more IITH students across different departments on InPTA and participating in these remembrance efforts, ”said Dr Shantanu Desai.