5 day INSPIRE Camp completes 3rd day

Katra May 30: Prof V Kannan, Vice Chancellor, University of Hyderabad delivered the 4th SMVDU colloquium here today as a part of the 3rd Department of Science & Technology, GOI sponsored Innovation in Science Pursuit for Inspired Research (INSPIRE) Science Internship Camp which is underway in Shri Mata Vaishno Devi University since May 28th, 2011.

Earlier during the proceedings of the INSPIRE Camp Prof. J. V. Narlikar, Emeritus Professor and founder IUCAAP, Pune delivered 3rd SMVDU Colloquium titled “Cosmic Illusions”. Prof. Nalrlikar said that there are illusions in space analogous to the ones that can be witnessed around us. He introduced the participants to the concept of bending of light due to gravity and spoke about the historical foundations of the same. He emphasized on the illusions created by different large cosmic bodies due to the gravitational convergence of light and creation of multiple images of objects in space. These hypothesizes were also supported by simple illustrations to make the students understand its importance and creation of interest in the subject. Prof. Narlikar distinguished himself at Cambridge University with the Smith’s Prize in 1962 and the Adams Prize in 1967. In 1988 he was invited by the University Grants Commission as Founder Director to set up the proposed Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCAA). Under his direction IUCAA has acquired a world-wide reputation as a centre for excellence in teaching and research in astronomy and astrophysics. Narlikar is internationally known for his work in cosmology, in championing models alternative to the popularly believed big bang model. He has received several national and international awards and honorary doctorates. He is a Bhatnagar awardee, as well as recipient of the M.P. Birla award, the Prix Janssen of the French Astronomical Society and an Associate of the Royal Astronomical Society of London. He is Fellow of the three national science academies as well as of the Third World Academy of Sciences. Apart from his scientific research, Narlikar has been well known as a science communicator through his books, articles, and radio/TV programmes. For these efforts, he was honoured by the UNESCO in 1996 with the Kalinga Award. Narlikar was decorated Padmabhushan in 1965, at the young age of 26. In 2004 he was awarded Padmavibhushan.

The camp took of with a INSPIRE expository lecture by Prof. R.N.K. Bamezai, Vice chancellor of Shri Mata Vaishno Devi University. His talk was based on recent developments in the area of Human Genomics, titled “Why we are different? Or are we same?” With the advent of modern biology, supported by technological developments and innovations, the importance of genomic variations and its functional implications as a risk factor, especially in human diseases, has become apparent. What used to be an abstract concept of an inherent reason being transmitted down the generation to shape as a risk factor for inflicting a disease, has started unfolding itself with the development of understanding of the subject of Human Genetics and Genomics.

Katra 21st Sept 2010. Prof. P. M. Gauthier, Adjunct Professor, Department of Mathematics, University of Montreal, Canada delivered a very interesting talk on the topic, “Riemann Hypothesis” as a part of the SMVDU Colloquium Series on September, 22, 2010.

Prof. Gauthier gave an introduction of ‘Riemann Zeta function’ and talked about the truth of the hypothesis in different situations. This function attempts to generate the frequency of prime numbers. He also highlighted its applications in Physics and its occurrence in Applied Statistics (Zipf's Law and Zipf–Mandelbrot Law). He also discussed its use as one possible means of regularization of divergent series in quantum field theory.

The talk was attended by Faculty Members, Research Scholars, students of M.Sc Mathematics & various streams of B.Tech program. Dr. V. K. Bhat, Director, School of Mathematics introduced Prof. Gauthier to the audience and thanked him for his visit to the University. Prof. Gauthier did his Ph.D in Mathematics from Wayne State University in1967 in Complex Analysis. He joined Department of Mathematics University of Montreal in 1967 as a faculty. He got full Professorship in 1979. At present he is an Adjunct Professor in University of Montreal. Prof. Gauthier has published more than 120 research papers. He has translated four books in Mathematics from Russian to English. Prof. Gauthier has visited more than 40 countries including China, France, Japan, Mexico, Russia, United States, Italy etc. in connection with Scientific Visits, Plenary Lectures, Invited Lectures & important meetings. Prof. Gauthier had guided many scholars for Ph.D. and has received many honors and awards.

During the session of his talk Prof. Gauthier, exchanged views with students and faculty members. He attended to the queries raised by the students with great interest. Later on he went around the campus and was impressed by the architecture and landscape design of the campus. Prof. Gauthier also visited some labs. and was happy to see students busy with their work in the labs.

The SMVDU coloquium Series has been started with the objective of inviting internationally renowned researchers and academicians to the university and provide an opportunity for the students and faculty to listen them.

Katra 13 August. SMVDU Colloquium Series aimed at providing a platform for discussion and deliberations to academia was inaugurated in the university campus by Hon’ble Vice Chancellor, Prof. R.N K Bamezai. The inaugural lecture in Colloquium series was delivered by Prof Jainendra K. Jain, Erwin W. Mueller Professor of Physics, Department of Physics, The Pennsylvania State University. (http://www.phys.psu.edu/~jain/. Prof Jain is a recipient of the Oliver E. Buckley Prize in 2002 of the American Physical Society, the highest prize in United States in the field of condensed matter physics. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and also of the American Physical Society, the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. Among his other honors are Distinguished Postdoctoral Alumnus Award from the University of Maryland, Distinguished Scholar Prize of the Indian Physics Association, and Distinguished Alumnus Award of the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur.

The title of the inaugural lecture was “Exotic particles in MOSFETs: An intriguing road to quantum computation?". In the lecture, Prof. Jain introduced the nature and properties of elementary fermions and mentioned some intriguing ideas for exploiting the non-abelian braiding properties of the vortices of their superconducting state for topological quantum computation.

In his inaugural address, Prof. Bamezai mentioned that the objective of the Smvdu Colloquium series is to invite internationally renowned researchers and academicians to the university and provide an opportunity for the students and faculty to listen them. He was sure that such interaction would light the spark in the mind of the young students and persuade them to innovate and research.

All Deans, directors, faculty members and students of university participated in the interactive lecture.

Professor Jainendra Jain,
Physics Department, The Pennsylvania State University
http://www.phys.psu.edu/~jain/

"Exotic particles in MOSFETs: An intriguing road to quantum computation?"

Abstract: The technological applications of semiconductors, magnets, and superconductors require the understanding of "emergent" particles, such as phonons, magnons, Cooper pairs, and Landau quasiparticles that arise from the collective behavior of many interacting particles. A new class of collective quasiparticles called composite fermions results when two-dimensional electrons in a semiconductor MOSFET are subjected to a strong perpendicular magnetic field. The topological character of composite fermions, which effectively swallow a part of the applied magnetic field, manifests itself through many exotic phenomena, most spectacularly in extremely precise quantizations of the macroscopic Hall resistance, known as the fractional quantum Hall effect.

In addition to presenting an elementary introduction to the nature and properties of composite fermions, I will mention certain intriguing ideas that have been proposed for exploiting the non-Abelian braiding properties of the vortices of their "superconducting" state for "topological quantum computation."

BIO: Jainendra Jain was a recipient of the Oliver E. Buckley Prize in 2002 of the American Physical Society, the highest prize in the United States in the field of condensed matter physics. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and also of the American Physical Society, the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. Among his other honors are Distinguished Postdoctoral Alumnus Award from the University of Maryland, Distinguished Scholar Prize of the Indian Physics Association, and Distinguished Alumnus Award of the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur. He currently serves on the Editorial Board of the Physical Review Letters and the Executive Committee of the Division of Condensed Matter Physics of the American Physical Society. Prof. Jain is the Erwin W. Mueller Professor of Physics at the Pennsylvania State University.