Sowmya S. Kulkarni
Research Scholar

Ph: +91 80 2238 5956
Fax: +91 80 2238 5957
E-mail: sowmya@mpbifr-blr.in

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Research Areas:

• The Eta Car Nebula: Morphology and Scattered light
  (under the Guidance of Prof.Jayant Murthy (IIA))

• M.Phil. (Astrophysics), Christ University, 2010
• M.Sc. (Physics) with Electronics Specialization, Christ University, 2008

Professional Experience Timeline:

Worked as lecturer in the following Pre- University Colleges

• Part time
  • Mount Carmel Pre-University College, Bangalore (January 2011- March 2011)
  Full time
  • Sri Bhagwan Mahaveer Jain College, J.C Road, Bangalore (June 2009 - July 2010)
  • The National pre- university college, Basavanagudi, Bangalore (June 2008 - March 2009)

Working as Research Scholar in MPBIFR from Aug 2010 to present

Research Areas:

The Eta Car Nebula: Morphology and Scattered light
(under the Guidance of Prof.Jayant Murthy (IIA))

Eta Car ( Eta Carinae), one of the most massive and remarkable known stars in our galaxy  is a stellar system in the southern constellation Carina, about 7,500 to 8,000 light-years from the Sun. Until recently, Eta Car was thought to be the most massive single star, but in 2005 it was realized to be a binary system. Eta Car is an S Doradus type star with a mass of over 100 solar masses and luminosity of about 4 million times greater than that of the Sun, putting it close to the theoretical limit of stellar stability. One remarkable aspect of Eta Car is its changing brightness. Eta Car sometimes has large outbursts.The reason for these outbursts is not yet known. It is currently classified as a luminous blue variable (LBV) binary star due to peculiarities in its pattern of brightening and dimming. At Eta Car, there are two different clouds which are called “the nebulosity surrounding Eta car”. One is the Herschel’s “Key-hole Nebula”, which covers many square degrees in one of the two brightest parts of the southern Milky Way. This is called as a “galactic nebulosity”. The other group of nebulae has been measured repeatedly since 1914 as a multiple star system by southern double star observers which can be called the “star’s nebulosity” (E. Gaviola 1950). Being an enormous star because of its mass and stage of life, Eta Car is on the verge of becoming a supernova. It has been ejecting immense amounts of material which have formed a series of shells including the Homonculus nebula and surrounding nebulosity. Starlight passing through a dust cloud can be affected in a couple of ways. The light can be totally blocked if the dust is thick enough or it can be partially scattered by an amount that depends on the color of the light and the thickness of the dust cloud. Scattered light is of considerable interest in its own right, providing one of the best probes into the scattering properties of the dust grains in the UV and the interstellar dust is important in virtually every aspect of Galactic astronomy (Murthy J & Henry R.C,1995; Murthy J, 2001). All wavelengths of light passing through a dust cloud will be dimmed somewhat.  A series of FUSE (Far Ultraviolet Spectroscopic Explorer) observations of locations around the star ( Eta Car) have been obtained which measure the amount of reflected stellar emission (Jayant Murthy & associates). The amount of reflected stellar emission in turn is a function of the brightness of the star and the dust distribution at the point of scattering. Thus an analysis of the far ultraviolet FUSE data will allow a decomposition of the different parameters of the dust around the star and will therefore help us understand its evolution.

Papers presented at National and International level Conferences

1. International
   
   
•  “Proposed Fabrication of a low energy D.C Accelerator”
  Sowmya.S.Kulkarni, Sudha Deshmukh, A.T  Seshadri
  Poster Presented in absentia in “A first small cyclotron conference” which was held on 24 April 2010, Houghton College, Newyork, United States.
  
  
2.  National
   
   

• “The Basic Parameters of not so well studied Open Cluster Kronberger 1 using Optical and Near- Infrared Observations”
   Sowmya S. Kulkarni, S.Sujatha and G.S.D Babu
   Presented in the National conference “Contemporary Issues in Research” during May 5 to 7th, 2011 in Christ University, Bangalore.

• “UBVRI CCD Photometry of Open clusters Haffner 9 and Waterloo 7”
  S.Sujatha, Sowmya.S.Kulkarni, G.S.D Babu
  Poster presented in the 29th scientific meeting of the Astronomical Society of India which was held at School of Studies in Physics & Astrophysics,
  Pt. Ravishankar Shukla University, Raipur during Feb.23-25, 2011.