Prof. Sandip Chakrabarti
Summary:
Neither the Earth not the Solar System is a special place in the Universe. However, the earth is the only place known to harbour lives. In this Course of lectures, I discuss the evolution of chemical species in a habitable zone as a part of the general evolution of the universe. Thus, the life is treated as a by-product of chemical reactions taking place in a vast laboratory for a few billion years. I discuss the formation and evolution of protostars via collapse and fragmentation of interstellar clouds and the chemical evolution which take place on the way. I discuss the role of gas phase and grain phase chemistry in production of chemicals we see all around. Rate Equations method, Master Equation method and Monte-Carlo Methods are discussed in the context of grain chemistry. We present observational supports of complex molecules, including amino acids. Towards the end we present the efforts going on to discover exo-planets through various ground based and space based methods.
(Two lectures each day for five days a week)
(a) J. Hartmann, Accretion Processes in Star Forming Region (Cambridge Univ. Press), 1998
(b) A. Li & J. Mayo Greenberg, "In Dust we Trust", in Solid State
Astrochemistry, Ed. V. Pironello & J. Krelowski (Dordrecht: Kluwer) 2002
(astro-ph/0204392)
(c) E. Herbst, Astrochemistry in Gas and on Dust Particles, ESASP, 577, 205, 2005
(d) S. Chakrabarti & S. K. Chakrabarti, Astron. Astrophys., 354, L6, 2000
(e) K. Acharyya, S.K. Chakrabarti, S. Chakrabarti, MNRAS, 361, 550, 2005
(f) S.K. Chakrabarti et al., Astronomy & Astrophysics, 457, 167, 2006
(g) A. Das, K. Acharyya, S. Chakrabarti, S.K. Chakrabarti, Astronomy & Astrophysics,
486, 209, 2008