Shantanu Desai's Home Page

Awards and Recognitions

Employment/Appointments

• Professor, Physics Dept., IIT Hyderabad (October 2023-present)
• Associate Professor, Physics Dept., IIT Hyderabad (July 2016-October 2023)
• Research Affiliate, Excellence Cluster, Garching. (Jan-July 2016)
• Research Fellow, LMU Observatory (August 2011- Dec. 2015)
• Postdoctoral Research Associate, University of Illinois (August 2008-July 2011)
• Postdoctoral Scholar, Center for Gravitational Wave Physics , Pennsylania State University (August 2004 - July 2008)

Research Interests (Current and Previous)

Press Coverage

• India's largest radio telescope key to detecting the universe's vibrations and Pune-based radio telescope helps detect universe's vibrations
• Microglitches spotted in stable millisecond pulsars
• Pulsars help detect space weather disruptions triggered by Sun
• Could machine learning unlock the secrets of our galaxy
• UNH Researcher: Cosmos expanded quickly because we are in a black hole
• Super-K and T2K awarded Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics

Selected Publications

• S. Desai Combined significance of spatial coincidence of high energy neutrinos from PSR B1509-58 by Super-Kamiokande and MACRO JCAP 08, 001 (2022)
• P. Tarafdar et al, The Indian Pulsar Timing Array: First data release PASA 39, e053 (2022)
• K. Bora and S. Desai Constraints on variation of fine structure constant from joint SPT-SZ and XMM-Newton observations JCAP, 02, 012 (2021)
• A. Krishak, A. Dantuluri and S. Desai Robust model comparison tests of DAMA/LIBRA annual modulation JCAP 02, 007 (2020)
• S. Boran, S. Desai, E.O. Kahya, R. Woodard GW170817 Falsifies Dark Matter Emulators Phys. Rev. D97, 041501 (2018)
• S. Desai Limit on graviton mass from galaxy cluster Abell 1689 Phys. Lett. B 778, 325 (2018)
• E.O. Kahya and S. Desai, Constraints on frequency-dependent violations of Shapiro delay from GW150914 , Phys. Lett. B756, 265 (2016)
• S. Desai, J. Mohr, E. Bertin, M. Kummel and M. Wetzstein Detection and Removal of Artifacts in Astronomical Images Astronomy and Computing 16, 67 (2016)
• S. Desai and N.J. Poplawski Non-parametric reconstruction of an inflaton potential from Einstein-Cartan-Sciama-Kibble gravity with particle production, Phys. Lett. B755, 183 (2016)
  (See article about this in All about Space magazine Page 1, Page2 and Page 3)
• J. Song et al Redshifts, Sample Purity, and BCG positions for the Galaxy Cluster Catalog from the first 720 square degrees of the South pole telescope survey , ApJ, 761, 22 (2012)
  (see the NOAO press release about this paper here)
• S. Desai et al The Blanco Cosmology Survey: Data Acquisition, Processing, Calibration, Quality Diagnostics and Data Release , ApJ 757, 83 (2012).
• L. Blackburn et al, The LSC Glitch Group : Monitoring Noise Transients during the fifth LIGO Science Run CQG, 25, 184004 (2008)
• S. Desai et al, Study of TeV Neutrinos with Upward Showering Muons in Super-Kamiokande Astropart. Phys. 29, 42 (2008)
• Super-Kamiokande Collaboration, A Measurement of Atmospheric Neutrino Oscillation Parameters by Super-Kamiokande I, Phys. Rev. D.71, 112005, (2005)
  (Listed among top 15 hep-ex citations in 2009 and 1100+ citations as of March 2020)
• S. Desai et al, Search for Dark Matter WIMPs using Upward Through-going Muons in Super-Kamiokande Phys. Rev. D, 70, 083253, (2004)
  (Listed among top 15 hep-ex citations in 2009 and 400+ citations as of March 2020)

  For complete list of publications see inspire-hep or NASA/ADS. All Publications with major contributions after 2016 can also be found on ORCID

Selected Presentations

• Observational Probes of Cosmology (Video) Physics Colloquium at IIT Gandhinagar (online), November 2020
  
• Outreach talk on 2020 Nobel Prize in Physics (Video) Talk given at IIT Hyderabad , October 2020
  
• Landscape of Dark Energy Experiments Particle Physics seminar, University of Warsaw, March 2016
  
• Optical Followups of South Pole Telescope Galaxy Clusters Seminar, IUCAA, Pune, July 2012
  
• Searches for Gravitational Wave Bursts : Methods and Challenges Seminar, LIGO-MIT, July 2008
  
• Physics and Astronomy with Upward Muons in Super-Kamiokande Ph. D thesis defense, Boston University, Dec. 2003
  

Service to Physics/Astrophysics Community

• Referee for Phys Rev Lett, Phys Rev D, CQG, Astroparticle Physics, MNRAS, Astronomy and Astrophysics, New Journal of Phys., J. Phys. G, PASP, EPJC, Astronomy and Computing, Applied Economics, Open Journal of Astrophysics, JCAP, Physica A, Journal of High Energy Astrophysics, Gravitation and Cosmology
• Editorial Board, Indian Journal of Physics
• Organizing Committee of DES Algorithms meeting , Munich May 2010 and DES Collaboration Meeting, Garching, May 2012
• SOC of IAGRG 2022, IISER Kolkata, Dec 2022
• Local Organizing Committee of International Pulsar timing Array collaboration meeting, Pune, June 2019 and June 2021 (virtual)
• Contributions to hepnames database at Spires/Inspire

Experimental Affiliations

• Indian Pulsar Timing Array (2018-present)
• Euclid Consortium (2011 - 2015)
• South Pole Telescope (2009 - 2017)
• Dark Energy Survey (2008 - present) - Builder status
• LIGO Scientific Collaboration (2004-2009) (Topic of 2017 Physics Nobel Prize) See also here for all presentations in LIGO meetings
• Super-Kamiokande (1999-2008) (Topic of 2015 Physics Nobel Prize)

Research Related Links

• Blanco Cosmology Survey Images and Catalogs (Link not active now. Please contact me for the BCS data)
• Compendium of all H₀ (Hubble Constant) values
• HEP/astro video seminar series

Education

• Ph.D., Physics, Boston University, May 2004
  Thesis Committee : Larry Sulak, Ed Kearns, Sheldon Glashow (1979 Physics Nobel Laureate) Check out academic genealogy tree here
• M.A., Astronomy, Boston Univerity , May 1997
• B.Tech, Physics, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay , May 1995