Research Interests

• Astrophysical X-ray Sources:
  Galactic black hole binaries, X-ray Observational tests of GR in strong gravity, Accretion process in black hole binaries, Disk-jet connection in micro-quasars, Rotation powerd Pulsars, Gamma-Ray Bursts (GRB), X-rays from the solar corona and coronal heating
• Experimental X-ray Astronomy:
  Development of new generation instruments for X-ray polarimetry and high-resolution wide-band X-ray spectroscopy, development of X-ray optics
• Payload design and development for Indian Astronomy missions:
  Astrosat, proposed broadband X-ray polarmetry mission, proposed Daksha mission
• Payload design and development for Indian solar and planetary missions:
  HEX/Chandrayaan-1, XSM/Chandrayaan-2, APXS/Chandrayaan-3, ASPEX/Aditya-L1, VS3 and VeRad onboard proposed Venus mission

Academic Qualifications

• Post-doctoral Fellow: 2003-2005, Center for Astrophysics (CfA), Harvard University, Cambridge, USA
• Ph. D. (X-ray Astronomy), 2003, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai, India
• M. Sc. (Physics), 1997, The Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda, Vadodara, India
• B. Sc. (Physics), 1995, The Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda, Vadodara, India

Professional Experience

• Principal Investigator: Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer (APXS) on-board Pragyan rover of the Chandrayaan-3 mission
• Principal Investigator: Solar X-ray Monitor (XSM) on-board Chandrayaan-2 Orbiter
• Principle Investigator - Science: Venus Solar Soft X-ray Spectrometer (VS3) on-board upcoming Venus mission
• Co-Principle Investigator: Aditya Solar Wind and Particle Experiment (ASPEX) on-board Aditya-L1 mission
• Principal Investigator: Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer (APXS) on-board Pragyan rover of the Chandrayaan-2 mission
• Lead Proposer: Hard X-ray Telescope for the future Indian X-ray astronomy mission
• Co-Proposer: Daksha mission to detect the Electro-magnetic (EM) counterparts of the Gravitational Wave (GW) sources
• Chair: AstroSat Time Allocation Committee for Target of Opportunity proposals
• Member: Science Working Groups: XPoSat, Aditya-L1, Chandrayaan-3, Chandrayaan-2, AstroSat
• Member of review committees for various ISRO programs such as RESPOND, ISRO-STC, Chandrayaan-2 data utilization program, Venus payloads science peer review
• Member of the short-listing committee for the scientific experiments on-board proposed Indian mission to Venus and second Indian mission to Mars (past)

Awards & Membership

• Life Member: Astronomical Society of India
• Life Member: the International Astronomical Union
• ASI Zubin Kembhavi Award: Global elemental mapping of lunar surface by payloads on Chandrayaan-2 team
• ISRO Team Award: For Chandrayaan-1 scientific experiments

Publications

1. “First In-Situ Elemental Abundance Measurement of Lunar High Latitude by Chandrayaan-3 APXS”
   Vadawale, S. V., Mithun, N. P. S., Shanmugam, M., Sarbadhikari, A. B., Sinha, R. K., Bhatt, M., Vijayan, S., Srivastava, N., et al. (+29 more co-authors) Nature, 2024
2. “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 ”
   Vadawale, S. V., Mithun, N. P. S., Mondal, B. Sarkar, A. Janardhan, P., Joshi, B., Bhardwaj, A., Shanmugam, M., Patel, A. R., Adalja, H. L., Goyal, S. K., Ladiya, T., Tiwari, N., Singh, N., Kumar, S. The Astrophysical Journal Letters, 2021, Volume 912, Issue 1, id.L13. (Citations: 20)
3. “Phase-resolved X-ray polarimetry of the Crab pulsar with the AstroSat CZT Imager”
   Vadawale, S. V., Chattopadhyay, T., Mithun, N. P. S., Rao, A. R., Bhattacharya, D., C., Vibhute, A., Bhalerao, V. B., Dewangan, G. C., Misra, R., Paul, B., Basu, A., Joshi, B. Sreekumar, S., Samuel, E., Priya, P., Vinod, P., Seetha, S. Nature Astronomy, 2018, Volume 2, p. 50-55. (Citations: 59)
4. “Hard X-ray polarimetry with Astrosat-CZTI”
   Vadawale, S. V., Chattopadhyay, T., Rao, A. R., Bhattacharya, D., Bhalerao, V. B., Vagshette, N., Pawar, P., Sreekumar, S. Astronomy & Astrophysics, 2015, Volume 578, id.A73. (Citations: 50)
5. “On the Origin of the Various Types of Radio Emission in GRS 1915+105”
   Vadawale, S. V., Rao, A. R., Naik, S., Yadav, J. S., Ishwara-Chandra, C. H., Pramesh Rao, A., Pooley, G. G. The Astrophysical Journal, 2003, Volume 597, Issue 2, pp. 1023-1035. (Citations: 80)

Students

• Neeraj K. Tiwari: Completing in 2026
Thesis title:
• Ashish Mandal: Completing in 2026
Thesis title:

• Mithun N. P. S.: Completed 2024
  Thesis title: "Intricacies of Astrophysical X-ray Spectroscopy and Investigations of Multi- Scale Solar Flares"
• Abhay Kumar: Completed 2023
  Thesis title: "Hard X-ray spectro-polarimetric study of black hole binary Cygnus X-1"
• Biswajit Mondal: Completed 2023
  Thesis title: "Investigating the coronal X-ray characteristics – From Sun as a star to imaging spectroscopy"
• Sandeep Kumar Rout: Completed 2021
  Thesis title: "Various manifestations of accretion onto stellar mass black holes"
• Aarthy E.: Completed 2021
  Thesis title: "Multiwavelength Polarimetry of Astrophysical Sources"
• Tanmoy Chattopadhyay: Completed 2016
  Thesis title: "Observational Aspects of Hard X-ray Polarimetry "
• Anjali Rao: Completed 2016
  Thesis title: "Study of Spectral and Timing Properties of Black Hole Binaries"