Steps to joining IISc as an Assistant Prof.

1) go to health center for medical exam. (ht+wt+urine test+vision test+hernia/hydrocele test) get a signed/stamped letter with approval from the chief medical officer. take this letter to the dept.; this is how you officially join.

2) the dept. will send the paperwork to the main admin. office and you will get further forms to fill out in few days.

3) get in touch with the Estate office (Kannan + Sridhar) for housing assignment. Asst. profs. qualify for D-type (2 BR) quarters. you have to pester them continuously to get the apartment repaired to make it livable. they do not function coherently and you'll have to talk to them very clearly and pester them to get the apartment ready on time.

4) open bank account at campus SBI. get a form from them and fill it out. you need to get a referral from one of your colleagues. you'll need an address proof; department can write a letter saying that you have joined the department and you can use the department address. you'll need two passport-size photos. you'll get a debit/ATM card and a pass-book. don't forget to apply for internet banking.

Its a good idea to get 10 copies of your driver's license and 10 passport-size photos. You need them for everything!

other things:

1) bsnl and airtel have best signal in and around campus. there is a bsnl vendor on campus near the estate office. i find that i am dropping a lot of calls on my prepaid bsnl sim and i am thinking of switching to airtel. i'll update on how airtel does.

2) there are several eating options, both on-campus and outside. i like prakruti veg. canteen near the main gate and the tata book house. tea board is right next to it. then there is faculty club but you'll need your ID to be able to use it; you an ask a colleague to help with lunch. the main guest house serves breakfast, lunch, and dinner but I think you have to be staying in the guest house to be able to use this. on yeshwantpur side there is a fast food place near the yeshwantpur circle/fly-over and rajini andhra restaurant just opposite it.  there may be many more options; i'll expand on this as i discover more.

3) you can buy a bicycle at RR bikes near yeshwantpur circle/fly-over; its on SC road (see the map below for subedarchatram Rd.). there are a lot of used-bike dealers on triveni road close to the yeshwantpur fly-over (see map: http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=13.01897,77.557844&spn=0.001672,0.002221&z=19&lci=com.panoramio.all,com.google.webcams). You can also buy a helmet on Triveni Rd. There are a lot of bike repair shops on the same road. Remember prices are negotiable.

i'll add more stuff as i discover more things.

The Cosmic Baryon Budget

Among many surprising facts of astronomy is that stars contain a negligible fraction of the total mass in the universe. Most mass (~80%) is in the form of the mysterious dark matter. The minority baryons (comprising rest ~20% of the mass) are distributed in different forms (http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/9712020). At the current redshift most baryonic mass is in the X-ray halos of groups and clusters of galaxies; followed by mass in stars (most of the stars are in spheriodal components of galaxies); and by neutral and molecular gas in galaxies. Groups, the biggest baryon reservoirs, are diffuse and extremely difficult to observe in X-rays and therefore their baryon content is quite uncertain.

At high redshift (z~3) the conditions are rather different. The cosmic density is much higher and thus the cooling time is shorter. Moreover, almost all halos are less massive than 1.e11 solar masses, and hence  are cooling efficiently. At that redshift most of the baryons are in the form of neutral Hydrogen clouds embedded within  ~ 100s of kpc from galaxies. These `clouds' show up in Ly-alpha absorption of background quasars. Some of these clouds are optically thick and are known as damped Ly-alpha absorber (DLAs). The total mass estimated in these clouds is roughly equal to the total baryonic mass at current redshifts. Comparing the baryonic distribution at z=3 and z=0 then suggests that most Ly-alpha absorbing clouds (and stellar outflows generated by stars formed due to the cooling of these filaments) are shock-heated to X-ray temperatures at z=0 and fill the groups and clusters of galaxies.

Moreover, the total baryonic mass fraction at z=0 and z=3 agrees with the baryonic mass fraction calculated from big-bang nucleosynthesis. This implies that most baryonic mass in the universe is in detectable form; this is a good news for us astrophysicists as we can try to account for all of it.

A week to go!

Wow! The time has come to say good-bye. I am moving to India in a week. There was no time to feel anything till now, but I'll probably feel nostalgic once I am in India. I have spent last 10 happy and productive years in the US but I am very excited about my move to IISc Bangalore. Its the next phase of my life and there is lots to do and achieve.