Narasimhaiengar Mukunda

Last updated

Narasimhaiengar Mukunda
Born(1939-01-25)25 January 1939
New Delhi India
Nationality Indian
Alma mater
Awards
Scientific career
Institutions
Doctoral advisor E. C. G. Sudarshan

Narasimhaiengar Mukunda (born 25 January 1939, New Delhi, India) is an Indian theoretical physicist who is known for his expertise in Particle Physics, Mathematical Physics, Mechanics and Optics. His contributions to physics are many, prominent among them are Representation theory of Lorentz, Poincare and Other non-compact groups, Majorana and other relativistic wave equations, Fourier optics, Hamiltonian theories, quantum mechanics and optics Classical dynamical formalism. [1]

Contents

Education

Mukunda's higher education began at Delhi University, where he graduated with B.Sc. (Hon) degree in 1953. For his Ph.D he studied at University of Rochester with E. C. G. Sudarshan and graduated in 1964. Mukunda’s thesis dealt with Hamiltonian mechanics, symmetry groups and elementary particles. [2] .He also studied group theory at Princeton University with Valentine Bargmann, including topological groups and Lie theory.


Research Career

He was a post-doctoral fellow at Syracuse University before he returned to India. In 1967, he became a Fellow at Tata Institute of Fundamental Research. In 1969 he transferred to IISc, Bangalore. From 1972 to 2001 he served as professor at the Center for Theoretical Studies. [1] Using the notes from Bargmann's lectures, Mukunda contributed chapters on Lie groups to Classical Dynamics: a modern perspective that he authored with Sudarshan in 1974. The expression of symmetries on physics rests largely on Lie groups, and his later works exploit these classical groups for physical theory. Mukunda was particularly impressed by W. R. Hamilton's "theory of turns" (versors), and worked to extend the use of turns in Sp(2), SU(1,1) and the Lorentz group. In 1989 Mukunda, Rajiah Simon and Sudarshan published "Hamilton’s theory of turns and a new geometrical representation for polarization optics" which developed the coset space SU(2)/U(1) = S3/S1 as an alternative to the Poincaré sphere in the description of light polarization.

Mukunda and collaborators initiated the "Quantum theory of charged-particle beam optics" in 1989 by working out the focusing action of a magnetic quadrupole using the Dirac Equation.

Mukunda is an honorary professor at IISER Bhopal, [3] IISER Mohali and IISER Thiruvananthapuram. He is also the Distinguished associate of Ramakrishna Mission Vivekananda Educational and Research Institute. [4]

Awards

He was awarded the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Award, India's prestigious Scientist Award, in 1980 for his work in nonlinear and quantum optics. [5] In 2016 Mukunda gave the Fifteenth Memorial V.G. Kulkarni Lecture: "The Nature of Scientific Knowledge: some reflections". [6]

Selected publications

According to Mathematical Reviews, Mukunda contributed to 143 scholarly publications, including

References

  1. 1 2 "Brief Resume - Prof. N. Mukunda" (PDF). ICAST. Archived from the original on 24 June 2017. Retrieved 19 May 2019.
  2. ↑ Narasimhaigar Mukunda (1964) Studies in Hamiltonian theories of relativistic interacting particles, and in the application of symmetry groups to elementary particle physics, Seventh supplement to Checklist of Doctors’ Theses from University of Rochester
  3. ↑ "Physics Department, IISER Bhopal". Archived from the original on 22 September 2022. Retrieved 25 April 2021.
  4. ↑ Faculty at Ramakrishna Mission
  5. ↑ Handbook of Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize Winners (1958 - 1998) (PDF). Council of Scientific & Industrial Research, New Delhi. 1999. Archived from the original (PDF) on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 11 April 2012.
  6. ↑ VGK Memorial Lecture Series from Tata Institute of Fundamental Research
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