ANIL K. PRADHAN

Professor, Department of Astronomy, Adjunct Professor, Chemical Physics, The Ohio State University

E-mail: pradhan@astronomy.ohio-state.edu OR pradhan.1@osu.edu, Ph: 614-292-5850, Fax: 614-292-2928



MAIN RESEARCH AREAS

PHOTOIONIZATION
RECOMBINATION
COLLISION STRENGTHS
TRANSITION PROBABILITIES
ASTROPHYSICAL SPECTROSCOPY
OPACITIES
NANOBIOPHYSICS

DATABASE (Updates: Nahar)

ENERGY LEVELS
ELECTRON IMPACT EXCITATION
ELECTRON-ION RECOMBINATION
TRANSITION PROBABILITIES
PHOTOIONIZATION CROSS SECTIONS

COURSES TAUGHT

Astronomy 161 - Solar System
Astronomy 162 - Stars and Galaxies
Astronomy 823 - Astrophysical Spectroscopy (Graduate)
Astronomy 641 - Stellar Astrophysics
Scattering Theory (Graduate), Univ. of Colorado
Atomic Physics (Graduate), Univ. of Windsor

ATOMIC ASTROPHYSICS AND SPECTROSCOPY

AND

BIOMEDICAL NANOSPECTROSCOPY

Greetings! This homepage reports the research by the OSU Atomic Astrophysics and Biomedical Group, with senior Research Scientist Sultana Nahar and collaborators.

Research interests are theoretical studies of radiative and collisional atomic processes, and spectral formation in astrophysical plasmas - an integrated program of atomic physics and astronomy.

New directions in theoretical atomic physics research include a combination of Relativistic Coupled Cluster Method (RCCM) and the R-matrix method.

This website will also report on the activties of a new interdisciplinary COMPUTATIONAL NANOSCIENCE and BIOMEDICAL NANOSPECTROSCOPY initiative devoted to spectroscopy of material and biological nanostrcutures. Researchers in the group include Max Montenegro (Postdoc, Astronomy), Russell Pitzer (Chemistry), Yan Yu (Thomas Jefferson University Medical School), Jian Wang, Li Kaile, Neil Jenkins (OSU Medical Center), Chiranjib Sur (IBM, India), and Enam Chowdhury (Physics). The program was supported by a Large Interdisciplinary Grant Award from the OSU Office of Research, College of Mathematical and Physical Sciences, and the Department of Astronomy.

Recent developments include a new methodology, RESONANT THERANOSTICS, based on the use of monochromatic X-ray sources for imaging, therapy and diagnostics (theranostics) in cancer research, as reported in the following news item.

*** News Item OSUToday ***

"FROM ASTROPHYSICS TO BIOMEDICINE VIA NANOTECHNOLGY: A cover-story in Radiation Therapy magazine IMAGE reported on novel developments in the use of X-rays and nanoparticles for cancer diagnostics and therapy by an interdisciplinary group at Ohio State and other institutions. The article, The X-Ray Reloaded: Rearming Radiography with Resonant Theranostics , may be accessed on-line. The collaboration at OSU is led by Prof. Anil Pradhan (Astronomy and Chemical Physics), and includes researchers from the College of Biological and Mathematical and Physical Sciences, and the OSU Medical Center. The overall multi-disciplinary effort, theoretical and experimental, involves atomic and molecular physicists and chemists, astrophysicists, radiation therapists, and X-ray instrumentalists."

The Opacity Project and the Iron/RmaX Project

The OSU group represents the U.S. participants in the international Opacity Project (OP) , and the Iron Project (IP/RmaX) Network aimed at large-scale atomic calculations using the relativistic R-matrix method for iron-peak elements and X-ray astrophysics. The databases TIPTOPBASE and OPSERVER offer OP and IP atomic data, and on-line calculation of "customized" astrophysical opacities, at the Ohio Supercomputer Center in Columbus Ohio.

This homepage is also intended as a guide to recommended ATOMIC DATA for astrophysical and laboratory applications. In addition, the database Nahar OSU Radiative Data (NORAD) contains a large number of datafiles for energy levels, transition probabilities, photoionization cross sections, and total and partial (electron+ion) recombination rate coefficients (including radiative and dielectronic recombination processes in a unified and ab initio manner using the R-matrix method).

The radiative data supercede earlier TOPbase data.


HIGH ACCURACY ATOMIC PHYSICS IN ASTRONOMY

Workshop organized by Anil Pradhan and Sultana Nahar, sponsored by the Institute of Theoretical Atomic and Molecular Astrophysics (ITAMP) at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Cambridge (MA), jointly with the Iron Project, in honor of Michael J. Seaton, Professor Emeritus, University College London, London, UK, for monumental contributions to atomic physics and astrophysics and as founder of the Opacity Project, the forerunner of the Iron Project. Mike passed away in May 2007; his last paper "Updated Opacity Project radiative accelerations" appeared after his death in August 2007 (Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc., 382, 245). Obituary: "Michael J. Seaton", by Anil Pradhan and Sultana Nahar, Bulletin of American Astronomical Society, Vol. 39, No. 4, 1081, 2007.


PUBLICATIONS: 1995 -