In 1989 after I joined IUCAA, along with Sathyaprakash (Sathya in short) we began working in the field of data analysis of gravitational waves (Prior to this during 1987 - 1988 I had spent an year with Bernard Schutz where I was not only initiated into this area but also acquired some experience). Sathya contributed handsomely to the group activity and we were able to build a thriving group in gravitational wave data analysis. In the successful working of the group, the research students have played a vital role.
Biplab Bhawal with his engineering background (but Ph.D. on a topic
in general relativity) and Vijay Chickarmane with his inclination
towards quantum optics, chaos etc. added extra dimensions to the
activities and was greatly aided by David McClelland from ANU,
Canberra, Australia. The Indo-French project with Orsay group of the
VIRGO and
interaction with Australia (see collaborations) helped us to branch out
into another area - modelling of the interferometer. David Blair
from UWA, Perth, Australia played a key role in our collaboration
with Australia.
In the all sky search for pulsars, D. C. Srivastava and his student
Sanjay Sahay contributed independently and with great enthusiasm to the
data analysis effort at IUCAA. This was the university component. In
this work Ram Valluri from University of Western Ontario, Canada also
joined in with several contributions.
In the year 2000 the IUCAA group joined the LSC where we worked on
efficient search methods for inspiraling binaries, namely, the
hierarchical search and the interpolated search which used Tchebyshev
polynomials. Under the LSC we are currently part of the stochastic
group and are involved in developing methods for mapping the
gravitational wave stochastic background. This map making is
based on first making a directed search for a given patch in the sky
and then gluing all the pieces together.
With the Nice group under the IFCPAR programme we have contributed
to the data analysis for LISA. Jean-Yves Vinet was my French
collaborator. We found a novel approach based on
commutative algebra for doing time-delay interferometry for LISA.
This was an elegant method for cancelling laser frequency noise. Follow
up work on optimisation was carried out with Rajesh Nayak and
Archana Pai. We are now working on extending our previous work to
moving LISA and the flexing of its arms. General relativistic
corrections are a must. We have made a beginning by studying the
dynamics of the spacecraft and arm flexing. This work was also
with Rajesh Nayak and Sucheta Koshti.
With the Japanese group Nobuyuki Kanda and Hideyuki Tagoshi we are
working on comparing the coherent search versus the coincidence search
for inspiraling binaries with a network of detectors. Himan is the
IUCAA student involved in this project.
I list below the research students in the chronological order as they joined me: