The Harish-Chandra Research Institute (HRI) is an institution dedicated to research in

mathematics Mathematics is an area of knowledge that includes the topics of numbers, formulas and related structures, shapes and the spaces in which they are contained, and quantities and their changes. These topics are represented in modern mathematics ...

and

theoretical physics Theoretical physics is a branch of physics that employs mathematical models and abstractions of physical objects and systems to rationalize, explain and predict natural phenomena. This is in contrast to experimental physics, which uses experim ...

, located in

Allahabad Allahabad (), officially known as Prayagraj, also known as Ilahabad, is a metropolis in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh.The other five cities were: Agra, Kanpur (Cawnpore), Lucknow, Meerut, and Varanasi (Benares). It is the administrat ...

(officially Prayagraj),

Uttar Pradesh Uttar Pradesh (; , 'Northern Province') is a state in northern India. With over 200 million inhabitants, it is the most populated state in India as well as the most populous country subdivision in the world. It was established in 1950 ...

in India. Established in 1975, HRI offers masters and doctoral program in affiliation with the

Homi Bhabha National Institute The Homi Bhabha National Institute (HBNI) is an Indian deemed university established by the Department of Atomic Energy, which unifies academic programmes of several of its constituent institutions. Deemed universities in India have been divi ...

. HRI has a residential campus in

Jhusi Jhusi or Jhunsi is a town and a part of Allahabad municipal corporation in Allahabad district in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. It was formerly called Pratishthan Pur or Puri. The place is also noted for being one of the Neolithic sites ...

town near Allahabad on the banks of the River

Ganges The Ganges ( ) (in India: Ganga ( ); in Bangladesh: Padma ( )). "The Ganges Basin, known in India as the Ganga and in Bangladesh as the Padma, is an international river to which India, Bangladesh, Nepal and China are the riparian states." is ...

. The institute has over 30 faculty, 50 doctoral students and 25 post-doctoral visiting research fellows and scientists. HRI is funded by the

Department of Atomic Energy The Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) (IAST: ''Paramāṇu Ūrjā Vibhāga'') is a department with headquarters in Mumbai, Maharashtra, India. DAE was established in 1954 by a Presidential Order. DAE has been engaged in the development of nucl ...

(DAE) of the

Government of India The Government of India (ISO: ; often abbreviated as GoI), known as the Union Government or Central Government but often simply as the Centre, is the national government of the Republic of India, a federal democracy located in South Asia, c ...

History

The institute was founded as the Mehta Research Institute of Mathematics and Mathematical Physics in 1975, with an endowment from the B.S. Mehta Trust,

Calcutta Kolkata (, or , ; also known as Calcutta , List of renamed places in India#West Bengal, the official name until 2001) is the Capital city, capital of the Indian States and union territories of India, state of West Bengal, on the eastern ba ...

. The institute was initially managed by Badri Nath Prasad and following his death in January 1966 by S.R. Sinha, both from the

Allahabad University , mottoeng = "As Many Branches So Many Trees" , established = , type = Public , chancellor = Ashish Chauhan , vice_chancellor = Sangita Srivastava , head_label ...

. The first official director of the institute was

Prabhu Lal Bhatnagar Prabhu Lal Bhatnagar (8 August 1912 – 5 October 1976), commonly addressed as P. L. Bhatnagar, was an Indian mathematician known for his contribution to the Bhatnagar–Gross–Krook operator used in Lattice Boltzmann methods (LBM). Bio ...

in 1975 when it became truly operational. He was followed by S.R. Sinha again. On 29 November 1975 B. Devadas Acharya joined the Mehta Research Institute (MRI) as its first postdoctoral fellow and on 1 January 1980 was appointed as the first assistant professor of mathematics at MRI. During his research work between 1975 and 1984, he gave many talks on graph theory and its applications in computing. In one of his talks to international audiences, he envisioned a computing engine based on matrices which would be much more powerful.

Sharadchandra Shankar Shrikhande Sharadchandra Shankar Shrikhande (19 October 1917 – 21 April 2020) was an Indian mathematician with notable achievements in combinatorial mathematics. He was notable for his breakthrough work along with R. C. Bose and E. T. Parker in their dis ...

joined the institute as its director in January 1983. The institute was facing financial difficulties, and Shrikhande sought DAE support for the institute. Following the recommendations of the DAE review committee, the

Government of Uttar Pradesh The Government of Uttar Pradesh (ISO: Uttar Pradesh Sarkār; often abbreviated as GoUP) is the subnational government of the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh with the governor as its appointed constitutional head of the state by the President of I ...

committed to provide a campus for HRI, while the DAE committed to provide full funding for all operational expenses. In January 1990, the institute was granted about in

town of

Allahabad district Allahabad district, officially known as Prayagraj district, is the most populous district of Uttar Pradesh state of India. The district headquarters is Allahabad which was renamed Prayagraj at the same time as the district was renamed. The Di ...

and H.S. Mani took over as Director. The institute moved to its present campus in 1996. Since then, the institute has grown in facilities, scope of research as well as number of faculty and students. In October 2000, the institute was renamed in honor of renowned Indian mathematician

Harish-Chandra Harish-Chandra Fellow of the Royal Society, FRS (11 October 1923 – 16 October 1983) was an Indian American mathematician and physicist who did fundamental work in representation theory, especially harmonic analysis on semisimple Lie groups. ...

Ravi S. Kulkarni Ravindra Shripad Kulkarni (born 1942) is an Indian mathematician, specializing in differential geometry. He is known for the Kulkarni–Nomizu product. Education and career Ravi S. Kulkarni received in 1968 his Ph.D. from Harvard University under ...

succeeded Mani as the director in August 2001 and was followed by

Amitava Raychaudhuri Amitava Raychaudhuri is an Indian theoretical particle physicist. He is Professor Emeritus at the Physics Department of the Science College, University of Calcutta where he earlier held the Sir Tarak Nath Palit Chair Professorship. He is the ...

in July 2005. Jayanta Kumar Bhattacharjee followed in May 2011.

Research activities

The HRI Mathematics research group has four teams with focus on

Algebra Algebra () is one of the broad areas of mathematics. Roughly speaking, algebra is the study of mathematical symbols and the rules for manipulating these symbols in formulas; it is a unifying thread of almost all of mathematics. Elementary a ...

Analysis Analysis ( : analyses) is the process of breaking a complex topic or substance into smaller parts in order to gain a better understanding of it. The technique has been applied in the study of mathematics and logic since before Aristotle (38 ...

Geometry & Topology ''Geometry & Topology'' is a peer-refereed, international mathematics research journal devoted to geometry and topology, and their applications. It is currently based at the University of Warwick, United Kingdom, and published by Mathematical Sc ...

and

Number Theory Number theory (or arithmetic or higher arithmetic in older usage) is a branch of pure mathematics devoted primarily to the study of the integers and arithmetic function, integer-valued functions. German mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss (1777� ...

. The HRI Physics research group consists of teams focused on

Astrophysics Astrophysics is a science that employs the methods and principles of physics and chemistry in the study of astronomical objects and phenomena. As one of the founders of the discipline said, Astrophysics "seeks to ascertain the nature of the h ...

Condensed Matter Physics Condensed matter physics is the field of physics that deals with the macroscopic and microscopic physical properties of matter, especially the solid and liquid phases which arise from electromagnetic forces between atoms. More generally, the sub ...

High Energy Physics Particle physics or high energy physics is the study of fundamental particles and forces that constitute matter and radiation. The fundamental particles in the universe are classified in the Standard Model as fermions (matter particles) and b ...

String Theory In physics, string theory is a theoretical framework in which the point-like particles of particle physics are replaced by one-dimensional objects called strings. String theory describes how these strings propagate through space and interac ...

and Quantum Information & Computation. Prominent HRI faculty members in the area of String Theory include

Ashoke Sen Ashoke Sen FRS (; born 1956) is an Indian theoretical physicist and distinguished professor at the Harish-Chandra Research Institute, Allahabad. He is also an honorary fellow in National Institute of Science Education and Research (NISER), Bhu ...

and Rajesh Gopakumar. HRI faculty member in the area of Quantum Information and Computation includes Arun K. Pati, Aditi Sen De and Ujjawal Sen. Besides its research, the Mathematics group is known for conducting the annual ''Summer Programme in Mathematics'' (SPIM), a highly popular scheme that invites interested undergraduates from across India for an intensive month-long immersive program in advanced mathematics. The Physics group has also started ''Visiting Students Program'' (VSP) in Physics to motivate students for higher studies in Physics.

Awards

HRI faculty members have received numerous research awards. The following faculty members of the institute have received the

Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for Science and Technology The Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for Science and Technology (SSB) is a science award in India given annually by the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) for notable and outstanding research, Applied science, applied or Fundamenta ...

: *

(1994) *

(1997) *

Biswarup Mukhopadhyaya Biswarup Mukhopadhyaya (born 1 August 1960) is an Indian theoretical high energy physicist and a senior professor at Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Kolkata (IISER Kolkata). Known for his research on High energy colliders, H ...

(2003) *

Pinaki Majumdar Pinaki Majumdar (born 26 January 1964) is an Indian condensed matter physicist and the director of the Harish-Chandra Research Institute. Known for his research on correlated quantum systems, Majumdar is a recipient of the Global Indus Techno ...

(2007) * Rajesh Gopakumar (2009) *

Aditi De Aditi Sen De is an Indian scientist, a professor in quantum information and computation group at the Harish-Chandra Research Institute, Allahabad. She was born on 1st October 1974 in Kolkata, India. She is known for her research on quantum inf ...

(2018) Ashoke Sen received the prestigious

Infosys Prize The Infosys Prize is an annual award given to scientists, researchers, engineers and social scientists of Indian origin (not necessarily born in India) by the Infosys Science Foundation and ranks among the highest monetary awards in India to re ...

in 2009 and

Fundamental Physics Prize The Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics is one of the Breakthrough Prizes, awarded by the Breakthrough Prize Board. Initially named Fundamental Physics Prize, it was founded in July 2012 by Russia-born Israeli entrepreneur, venture capita ...

in July 2012.Allahabad physicist Ashoke Sen wins prize, becomes crorepati overnight
Indiatvnews.com (1 August 2012). Retrieved on 2013-12-06. He was also awarded the prestigious civilian award

Padma Bhushan The Padma Bhushan is the third-highest civilian award in the Republic of India, preceded by the Bharat Ratna and the Padma Vibhushan and followed by the Padma Shri. Instituted on 2 January 1954, the award is given for "distinguished service ...

by President of India in April 2013. Rajesh Gopakumar received the

International Centre for Theoretical Physics The Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP) is an international research institute for physical and mathematical sciences that operates under a tripartite agreement between the Italian Government, United Nations Education ...

Prize in 2006.

References

{{authority control Physics institutes Mathematical institutes Homi Bhabha National Institute Research institutes in Uttar Pradesh Universities and colleges in Allahabad Science and technology in Allahabad Educational institutions established in 1965 1965 establishments in Uttar Pradesh Theoretical physics institutes