``Polarisation'' by Rajaram Nityananda
``Polarisation'' by Rajaram Nityananda
These lectures are about the polarisation of electromagnetic radiation, with special reference to radio astronomy.
The different kinds of polarisation at a single frequency (linear, elliptic, circular). Representation by two complex amplitudes. Operations on polarised radiation - superposition, analysis, transformation - represented as 2x2 (Jones) matrices. Poincare sphere as a natural representation for all states of polarisation.
About Speaker: Rajaram Nityananda obtained his PhD in physics from Bangalore University in 1977, working in areas of optics and crystallography at the Materials division of the National Aerospace Laboratory. At the Raman Research Institute, Bengaluru, he worked mainly on theoretical problems in astronomy relating to optics and dynamics until 2000. Then, for a decade, he worked at the National Centre for Radio Astrophysics of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), Pune. He then taught undergraduate physics at IISER-Pune and the Azim Premji University in Bengaluru. After moving to ICTS-TIFR in 2022, he continues to work on radio imaging and gravitational lensing. He has served as the editor of Pramana Journal of Physics, Journal of Astrophysics and Astronomy, and Resonance, and has published in all of them as well.
