Image

Mithun N. P. S.

Scientist/Engineer SE
Experimental X-ray Astronomy group
Astronomy & Astrophysics Division
E-mail: mithun AT prl.res.in
Telephone: +91-79-2631 4947

Research Interests

  • X-ray Instrumentation: Design and development of instruments for astronomy, solar physics, and planetary science missions, ground and in-flight calibration of X-ray instruments, development of data analysis pipelines
  • The X-ray Sun: X-ray studies of solar flares, thermal and non-thermal processes in solar flares, microflares and coronal heating
  • High Energy Astrophysics: X-ray spectro-polarimetric studies of compact object binaries, pulsars, Gamma Ray Bursts

Academic Qualifications

Professional Experience

Awards

  • ASI Zubin Kembhavi Award: Part of the Chandrayaan-2 payload teams awarded for "Global elemental mapping of lunar surface by payloads on Chandrayaan-2 team"
  • Chairman's Gold Medal: Best academic performer of graduating batch of 2014 at Indian Institute of Space Science and Technology, Thiruvananthapuram

Publications

  1. Shrabani Kumar, G. C. Dewangan, P. Gandhi, I. E. Papadakis, N. P. S. Mithun, K. P. Singh, D. Bhattacharya, A. A. Zdziarski, G. C. Stewart, S. Bhattacharyya, and S. Chandra, 2024, Multi-epoch UV–X-Ray Spectral Study of NGC 4151 with AstroSat, ApJ, 975:73, October 2024
  2. S Vijayan, KB Kimi, Anil Chavan, R Aditi, U Thahira, V Rama Subramanian, Rishitosh K Sinha, Santosh Vadawale, M Shanmugam, N. P. S. Mithun, Arpit R Patel, S Amit Basu, KV Iyer, K Suresh, Ajay Prashar, G Rima, Anil Bhardwaj, 2024, Chandrayaan-3 landing site evolution by South Pole-Aitken basin and other impact craters, Icarus, Septmeber 2024
  3. Swadesh Chand, Gulab C. Dewangan, Andrzej A. Zdziarski, Dipankar Bhattacharya, N. P. S. Mithun, Santosh V. Vadawale, 2024, Accretion Geometry of GX 339–4 in the Hard State: AstroSat View, ApJ, 972:1, August 2024
  4. Santosh V. Vadawale, N. P. S. Mithun, M. Shanmugam, Amit Basu Sarbadhikari, Rishitosh K. Sinha, Megha Bhatt, S. Vijayan, Neeraj Srivastava, Anil D. Shukla, S. V. S. Murty, Anil Bhardwaj, Y. B. Acharya, Arpit R. Patel, Hiteshkumar L. Adalaja, C. S. Vaishnava, B. S. Bharath Saiguhan, Nishant Singh, Sushil Kumar, Deepak Kumar Painkra, Yash Srivastava, Varsha M. Nair, Tinkal Ladiya, Shiv Kumar Goyal, Neeraj K. Tiwari, Shyama Narendranath, Netra S. Pillai, Arup Kumar Hait, Aaditya Patinge, Abhishek Kumar, Neeraj Satya, Vivek R. Subramanian, Sonal G. Navle, R. G. Venkatesh, Lalitha Abraham, K. Suresh, Amitabh, 2024, Chandrayaan-3 APXS elemental abundance measurements at lunar high latitude, Nature, August 2024
  5. Varun Bhalerao, Santosh Vadawale, Shriharsh Tendulkar, Dipankar Bhattacharya, Vikram Rana, et al including Hitesh Kumar L. Adalja, Shiv Kumar Goyal, Tinkal Ladiya, N. P. S. Mithun, Arpit Patel, B.S. Bharath Saiguhan, M. Shanmugam, Piyush Sharma, Nishant Singh, Neeraj K. Tiwari, C.S. Vaishnava, 2024, Daksha: on alert for high energy transients, Experimental Astronomy, June 2024
  6. Varun Bhalerao, Disha Sawant, Archana Pai, Shriharsh Tendulkar, Santosh Vadawale, Dipankar Bhattacharya, Vikram Rana et al including Hitesh Kumar L. Adalja, Shiv Kumar Goyal, Tinkal Ladiya, N. P. S. Mithun, Arpit Patel, B.S. Bharath Saiguhan, M. Shanmugam, Piyush Sharma, Nishant Singh, Neeraj K. Tiwari, C.S. Vaishnava, 2024, Science with the Daksha high energy transients mission, Experimental Astronomy, June 2024
  7. N.K. Tiwari, S.V. Vadawale, N. P. S. Mithun, C.S. Vaishnava, B. Saiguhan, 2024, DarsakX: A Python package for designing and analyzing imaging performance of X-ray telescopes, Astronomy and Computing, May 2024
  8. Srimanta Banerjee, Gulab C. Dewangan, Christian Knigge, Maria Georganti, Poshak Gandhi, N. P. S. Mithun, Payaswini Saikia, Dipankar Bhattacharya, David M. Russell, Fraser Lewis, Andrzej A. Zdziarski, 2024, A Multiwavelength Study of the Hard and Soft States of MAXI J1820+070 During Its 2018 Outburst, ApJ, March 2024
  9. Tanmoy Chattopadhyay, Abhay Kumar, A. R. Rao, Yash Bhargava, Santosh V. Vadawale, Ajay Ratheesh, Gulab Dewangan, Dipankar Bhattacharya, N. P. S. Mithun, and Varun Bhalerao. High Hard X-Ray Polarization in Cygnus X-1 Confined to the Intermediate Hard State: Evidence for a Variable Jet Component. ApJ, 960(1):L2, January 2024.
  10. Yamini K. Rao, B. Mondal, Giulio Del Zanna, N. P. S. Mithun, S. V. Vadawale, K. K. Reeves, Helen E. Mason, and Anil Bhardwaj. Multiwavelength Observations of a B-class Flare Using XSM, AIA, and XRT. ApJ, 958(2):190, December 2023.
  11. Suman Bala, Sujay Mate, Advait Mehla, Parth Sastry, N. P. S. Mithun, Sourav Palit, Mehul Vijay Chanda, Divita Saraogi, C. S. Vaishnava, Gaurav Waratkar, Varun Bhalerao, Dipankar Bhattacharya, Shriharsh Tendulkar, and Santosh Vadawale. Prospects of measuring gamma-ray burst polarization with the Daksha mission. JATIS, 9:048002, October 2023.
  12. Biswajit Mondal, Santosh V. Vadawale, Giulio Del Zanna, N. P. S. Mithun, Aveek Sarkar, Helen E. Mason, P. Janardhan, and Anil Bhardwaj. Evolution of Elemental Abundances in Hot Active Region Cores from Chandrayaan-2 XSM Observations. ApJ, 955(2):146, October 2023.
  13. Abhijit Kayal, Veeresh Singh, Claudio Ricci, N. P. S. Mithun, Santosh Vadawale, Gulab Dewangan, and Poshak Gandhi. Multi-epoch hard X-ray view of Compton-thick AGN Circinus Galaxy. MNRAS, 522(3):4098–4115, July 2023.
  14. Biswajit Mondal, James A. Klimchuk, Santosh V. Vadawale, Aveek Sarkar, Giulio Del Zanna, P. S. Athiray, N. P. S. Mithun, Helen E. Mason, and Anil Bhardwaj. Role of Small-scale Impulsive Events in Heating the X-Ray Bright Points of the Quiet Sun. ApJ, 945(1):37, March 2023.
  15. Vishal Upendran, Durgesh Tripathi, N. P. S. Mithun, Santosh Vadawale, and Anil Bhardwaj. Nanoflare Heating of the Solar Corona Observed in X-Rays. ApJ, 940(2):L38, December 2022.
  16. N. P. S. Mithun, Santosh V. Vadawale, Giulio Del Zanna, Yamini K. Rao, Bhuwan Joshi, Aveek Sarkar, Biswajit Mondal, P. Janardhan, Anil Bhardwaj, and Helen E. Mason. Soft X-Ray Spectral Diagnostics of Multithermal Plasma in Solar Flares with Chandrayaan-2 XSM. ApJ, 939(2):112, November 2022.
  17. Abhay Kumar, Tanmoy Chattopadhyay, Santosh V. Vadawale, A. R. Rao, N. P. S. Mithun, Varun Bhalerao, and Dipankar Bhattacharya. Extending the energy range of AstroSat-CZTI up to 380 keV with compton spectroscopy. MNRAS, 516(2):3102–3112, October 2022.
  18. Tanmoy Chattopadhyay, Soumya Gupta, Shabnam Iyyani, Divita Saraogi,Vidushi Sharma, Anastasia Tsvetkova, Ajay Ratheesh, Rahul Gupta, N.P. S. Mithun, C. S. Vaishnava, Vipul Prasad, E. Aarthy, Abhay Kumar, A. R. Rao, Santosh Vadawale, Varun Bhalerao, Dipankar Bhattacharya, Ajay Vibhute, and Dmitry Frederiks. Hard X-Ray Polarization Catalog for a Five-year Sample of Gamma-Ray Bursts Using AstroSat CZT Imager. ApJ, 936(1):12, September 2022.
  19. G. Del Zanna, B. Mondal, Y. K. Rao, N. P. S. Mithun, S. V. Vadawale, K. K. Reeves, H. E. Mason, A. Sarkar, P. Janardhan, and A. Bhardwaj. Multiwavelength Observations by XSM, Hinode, and SDO of an Active Region. Chemical Abundances and Temperatures. ApJ, 934(2):159, August 2022.
  20. C. S. Vaishnava, N. P. S. Mithun, Santosh V. Vadawale, Esakkiappan Aarthy, Arpit R. Patel, Hiteshkumar L. Adalja, Neeraj Kumar Tiwari, Tinkal Ladiya, Nilam Navale, Tanmoy Chattopadhyay, A. R. Rao, Varun Bhalerao, and Dipankar Bhattacharya. Experimental verification of off-axis polarimetry with cadmium zinc telluride detectors of AstroSat-CZT Imager. JATIS, 8:038005, July 2022.
  21. Santosh V. Vadawale, N. P. S. Mithun, Biswajit Mondal, Aveek Sarkar, P. Janardhan, Bhuwan Joshi, Anil Bhardwaj, M. Shanmugam, Arpit R. Patel, Hitesh Kumar L. Adalja, Shiv Kumar Goyal, Tinkal Ladiya, Neeraj Kumar Tiwari, Nishant Singh, and Sushil Kumar. Observations of the Quiet Sun during the Deepest Solar Minimum of the Past Century with Chandrayaan-2 XSM: Sub-A-class Microflares outside Active Regions. ApJ, 912(1):L13, May 2021.
  22. Santosh V. Vadawale, Biswajit Mondal, N. P. S. Mithun, Aveek Sarkar, P. Janardhan, Bhuwan Joshi, Anil Bhardwaj, M. Shanmugam, Arpit R. Patel, Hitesh Kumar L. Adalja, Shiv Kumar Goyal, Tinkal Ladiya, Neeraj Kumar Tiwari, Nishant Singh, and Sushil Kumar. Observations of the Quiet Sun during the Deepest Solar Minimum of the Past Century with Chandrayaan-2 XSM: Elemental Abundances in the Quiescent Corona. ApJ, 912(1):L12, May 2021.
  23. N. P. S. Mithun, Santosh V. Vadawale, M. Shanmugam, Arpit R. Patel, Neeraj Kumar Tiwari, Hiteshkumar L. Adalja, Shiv Kumar Goyal, Tinkal Ladiya, Nishant Singh, Sushil Kumar, Manoj K. Tiwari, M. H. Modi, Biswajit Mondal, Aveek Sarkar, Bhuwan Joshi, P. Janardhan, and Anil Bhardwaj. Ground calibration of Solar X-ray Monitor on board the Chandrayaan-2 orbiter. Experimental Astronomy, 51(1):33–60, February 2021.
  24. N. P. S. Mithun, S. V. Vadawale, A. R. Patel, M. Shanmugam, D. Chakrabarty, P. Konar, T. N. Sarvaiya, G. D. Padia, A. Sarkar, P. Kumar, P. Jangid, A. Sarda, M. S. Shah, and A. Bhardwaj. Data processing software for Chandrayaan-2 Solar X-ray Monitor. Astronomy and Computing, 34:100449, January 2021.
  25. Biswajit Mondal, Aveek Sarkar, Santosh V. Vadawale, N. P. S. Mithun, P. Janardhan, Giulio Del Zanna, Helen E. Mason, Urmila Mitra-Kraev, and S. Narendranath. Evolution of Elemental Abundances during B-Class Solar Flares: Soft X-Ray Spectral Measurements with Chandrayaan-2 XSM. ApJ, 920(1):4, October 2021.
  26. R. Ramesh, C. Kathiravan, N. P. S. Mithun, and S. V. Vadawale. Radio, X-Ray, and Extreme-ultraviolet Observations of Weak Energy Releases in the “Quiet” Sun. ApJ, 918(1):L18, September 2021.
  27. B. Mondal, S. V. Vadawale, N. P. S. Mithun, C. S. Vaishnava, N. K. Tiwari, S. K. Goyal, S. S. Panini, V. Navalkar, C. Karmakar, M. R. Patel, and R. B. Upadhyay. DarpanX: A python package for modeling X-ray reflectivity of multilayer mirrors. Astronomy and Computing, 34:100446, January 2021.
  28. A. Ratheesh, A. R. Rao, N. P. S. Mithun, S. V. Vadawale, A. Vibhute, D. Bhattacharya, P. Pradeep, S. Sreekumar, and V. Bhalerao. A generalized event selection algorithm for AstroSat CZT imager data. JAA, 42(2):37, October 2021.
  29. D. Paul, A. R. Rao, A. Ratheesh, N. P. S. Mithun, S. V. Vadawale, A. Vibhute, D. Bhattacharya, P. Pradeep, and S. Sreekumar. Characterisation of cosmic ray induced noise events in AstroSat-CZT imager. JAA, 42(2):68, October 2021.
  30. Ajay Vibhute, Dipankar Bhattacharya, N. P. S. Mithun, V. Bhalerao, A. R. Rao, and S. V. Vadawale. Imaging calibration of AstroSat Cadmium Zinc Telluride Imager (CZTI). JAA, 42(2):76, October 2021.
  31. Tanmoy Chattopadhyay, Soumya Gupta, Vidushi Sharma, Shabnam Iyyani, Ajay Ratheesh, N. P. S. Mithun, E. Aarthy, Sourav Palit, Abhay Kumar, Santosh V. Vadawale, A. R. Rao, Varun Bhalerao, and Dipankar Bhattacharya. Sub-MeV spectroscopy with AstroSat-CZT imager for gamma ray bursts. JAA, 42(2):82, October 2021.
  32. Abhay Kumar, Tanmoy Chattopadhyay, Santosh V. Vadawale, A. R. Rao, Soumya Gupta, N. P. S. Mithun, Varun Bhalerao, and Dipankar Bhattacharya. Exploring sub-MeV sensitivity of AstroSat-CZTI for ON-axis bright sources. JAA, 42(2):67, October 2021.
  33. Sujay Mate, Tanmoy Chattopadhyay, Varun Bhalerao, E. Aarthy, Arvind Balasubramanian, Dipankar Bhattacharya, Soumya Gupta, Krishnan Kutty, N. P. S. Mithun, Sourav Palit, A. R. Rao, Divita Saraogi, Santosh Vadawale, and Ajay Vibhute. The AstroSat mass model: Imaging and flux studies of off-axis sources with CZTI. JAA, 42(2):93, October 2021.
  34. Netra S. Pillai, S. Narendranath, K. Vadodariya, Srikar P. Tadepalli, V. Radhakrishna, Anurag Tyagi, Reena Yadav, Brajpal Singh, Vaishali Sharan, P. S. Athiray, P. Sreekumar, K. Sankarasubramanian, Megha Bhatt, Amit Basu Sarbadhikari, N. P. S. Mithun, and Santosh Vadawale. Chandrayaan-2 Large Area Soft X-ray Spectrometer (CLASS): Calibration, In-flight performance and first results. Icarus, 363:114436, July 2021.
  35. N. P. S. Mithun, Santosh V. Vadawale, Aveek Sarkar, M. Shanmugam, Arpit R. Patel, Biswajit Mondal, Bhuwan Joshi, P. Janardhan, Hiteshkumar L. Adalja, Shiv Kumar Goyal, Tinkal Ladiya, Neeraj Kumar Tiwari, Nishant Singh, Sushil Kumar, Manoj K. Tiwari, M. H. Modi, and Anil Bhardwaj. Solar X-Ray Monitor on Board the Chandrayaan-2 Orbiter: In-Flight Performance and Science Prospects. Sol. Phys., 295(10):139, October 2020.
  36. N. P. S. Mithun, Santosh V. Vadawale, M. Shanmugam, Arpit R. Patel, Nishant Singh, Sushil Kumar, Neeraj Kumar Tiwari, Shiv Kumar Goyal, Amit Basu Sarbadhikari, Garima Arora, Yash Srivastava, Hitesh Kumar Adalja, Tinkal Ladiya, Deepak Kumar Painkra, Swaroop B. Banerjee, Vishnubhai R. Patel, and Anil Bhardwaj. Ground calibration of Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer (APXS) on-board Chandrayaan-2 Pragyaan rover: An empirical approach. Planet. Space Sci., 187:104923, August 2020.
  37. M. Shanmugam, S. V. Vadawale, Arpit R. Patel, Hitesh Kumar Adalaja, N. P. S. Mithun, Tinkal Ladiya, Shiv Kumar Goyal, Neeraj K. Tiwari, Nishant Singh, Sushil Kumar, Deepak Kumar Painkra, Y. B. Acharya, Anil Bhardwaj, A. K. Hait, A. Patinge, Abinand han Kapoor, H. N. Suresh Kumar, Neeraj Satya, Gaurav Saxena, and Kalpana Arvind. Solar X-ray Monitor Onboard Chandrayaan-2 Orbiter. Current Science, 118(1):45–52, January 2020.
  38. M. Shanmugam, S. V. Vadawale, Arpit R. Patel, N. P. S. Mithun, Hitesh Kumar Adalaja, Tinkal Ladiya, Shiv Kumar Goyal, Neeraj K. Tiwari, Nishant Singh, Sushil Kumar, Deepak Kumar Painkra, A. K. Hait, A. Patinge, Abhishek Kumar, Saleem Basha, Vivek R. Subramanian, R. G. Venkatesh, D. B. Prashant, Sonal Navle, Y. B. Acharya, S. V. S. Murty, and Anil Bhardwaj. Alpha Particle X-Ray Spectrometer Onboard Chandrayaan-2 Rover. Current Science, 118(1):53–61, January 2020.
  39. Vidushi Sharma, Shabnam Iyyani, Dipankar Bhattacharya, Tanmoy Chattopadhyay, A. R. Rao, E. Aarthy, Santosh V. Vadawale, N. P. S. Mithun, Varun. B. Bhalerao, Felix Ryde, and Asaf Pe’er. Time-varying polarized gamma-rays from GRB 160821a: Evidence for ordered magnetic fields. ApJ, 882(1):L10, sep 2019.
  40. Tanmoy Chattopadhyay, Santosh V. Vadawale, E. Aarthy, N. P. S. Mithun, Vikas Chand, Ajay Ratheesh, Rupal Basak, A. R. Rao, Varun Bhalerao, Sujay Mate, Arvind B., V. Sharma, and Dipankar Bhattacharya. Prompt emission polarimetry of gamma-ray bursts with the AstroSat CZT imager. ApJ, 884(2):123, oct 2019.
  41. S. K. Goyal, A. P. Naik, N. P. S. Mithun, S. V. Vadawale, N. Nagrani, S. Madhvi, N. K. Tiwari, T. Ladiya, A. R. Patel, H. K. Adalja, T. Chattopadhyay, M. Shanmugam, A Auknoor, P Sharma, and V. R. Patel. Development of position sensitive detector module using scintillator and si photomultiplier for hard x-ray imaging and spectroscopy. JATIS, 5:5 – 5 – 13, 2018.
  42. A. Basu, B. C. Joshi, D. Bhattacharya, A. R. Rao, A. Naidu, M. A. Krishnakumar, P. Arumugsamy, S. Vadawale, P. K. Manoharan, G. C. Dewangan, A. Vibhute, N. P. S. Mithun, and V. Sharma. Timing offset calibration of CZTI instrument aboard ASTROSAT. A&A, 617:A22, September 2018.
  43. S. V. Vadawale, T. Chattopadhyay, N. P. S. Mithun, A. R. Rao, D. Bhattacharya, A. Vibhute, V. B. Bhalerao, G. C. Dewangan, R. Misra, B. Paul, A. Basu, B. C. Joshi, S. Sreekumar, E. Samuel, P. Priya, P. Vinod, and S. Seetha. Phase-resolved X-ray polarimetry of the Crab pulsar with the AstroSat CZT Imager. Nature Astronomy, 2:50–55, 2018.
  44. V. Bhalerao, M. M. Kasliwal, D. Bhattacharya, A. Corsi, E. Aarthy, S. M. Adams, N. Blagorodnova, T. Cantwell, S. B. Cenko, R. Fender, D. Frail, R. Itoh, J. Jencson, N. Kawai, A. K. H. Kong, T. Kupfer, A. Kutyrev, J. Mao, S. Mate, N. P. S. Mithun, K. Mooley, D. A. Perley, Y. C. Perrott, R. M. Quimby, A. R. Rao, L. P. Singer, V. Sharma, D. J. Titterington, E. Troja, S. V. Vadawale, A. Vibhute, H. Vedantham, and S. Veilleux. A Tale of Two Transients: GW 170104 and GRB 170105A. ApJ, 845:152, August 2017.
  45. V. Bhalerao, D. Bhattacharya, A. Vibhute, P. Pawar, A. R. Rao, M. K. Hingar, R. Khanna, A. P. K. Kutty, J. P. Malkar, M. H. Patil, Y. K. Arora, S. Sinha, P. Priya, E. Samuel, S. Sreekumar, P. Vinod, N. P. S. Mithun, S. V. Vadawale, N. Vagshette, K. H. Navalgund, K. S. Sarma, R. Pandiyan, S. Seetha, and K. Subbarao. The Cadmium Zinc Telluride Imager on AstroSat. JAA, 38:31, June 2017.
  46. A. R. Rao, M. H. Patil, Y. Bhargava, R. Khanna, M. K. Hingar, A. P. K. Kutty, J. P. Malkar, R. Basak, S. Sreekumar, E. Samuel, P. Priya, P. Vinod, D. Bhattacharya, V. Bhalerao, S. V. Vadawale, N. P. S. Mithun, R. Pandiyan, K. Subbarao, S. Seetha, and K. S. Sarma. Charged Particle Monitor on the Astrosat Mission. JAA, 38:33, June 2017.
  47. Y. Bhargava, A. R. Rao, K. P. Singh, M. Choudhury, S. Bhattacharyya, S. Chandra, G. C. Dewangan, K. Mukerjee, G. C. Stewart, D. Bhattacharya, N. P. S. Mithun, and S. V. Vadawale. A Precise Measurement of the Orbital Period Parameters of Cygnus X-3. ApJ, 849:141, November 2017.
  48. A. R. Rao, V. Chand, M. K. Hingar, S. Iyyani, R. Khanna, A. P. K. Kutty, J. P. Malkar, D. Paul, V. B. Bhalerao, D. Bhattacharya, G. C. Dewangan, P. Pawar, A. M. Vibhute, T. Chattopadhyay, N. P. S. Mithun, S. V. Vadawale, N. Vagshette, R. Basak, P. Pradeep, E. Samuel, S. Sreekumar, P. Vinod, K. H. Navalgund, R. Pandiyan, K. S. Sarma, S. Seetha, and K. Subbarao. AstroSat CZT Imager Observations of GRB 151006A: Timing, Spectroscopy, and Polarization Study. ApJ, 833:86, December 2016.
  49. T. Chattopadhyay, S. V. Vadawale, S. K. Goyal, N. P. S. Mithun, A. R. Patel, R. Shukla, T. Ladiya, M. Shanmugam, V. R. Patel, and G. P. Ubale. Development of a hard x-ray focal plane compton polarimeter: a compact polarimetric configuration with scintillators and Si photomultipliers. Experimental Astronomy, 41:197–214, February 2016.
  50. A. Rao Jassal, S. V. Vadawale, N. P. S. Mithun, and R. Misra. Investigating the Connection between Quasi Periodic Oscillations and Spectral Components with NuSTAR Data of GRS 1915+105. ApJ, 817:28, January 2016.

Contact

Mithun N. P. S.
Astronomy & Astrophysics Division
Physical Research Laboratory Thaltej Campus
Opp. AUDA Garden, Sindhubhavan Maarg
Ahmedabad, Gujarat - 380058
Office Phone : +91-79-2631 4947
Email ID : mithun AT prl.res.in
Web Page : https://www.prl.res.in/~mithun
↑