Infosys Foundation today announced it has signed an MoU with the Inter-University Centre of Astronomy and Astrophysics through an endowment of Rs 6.5 crore to build a novel and powerful instrument called Wide Area Linear Optical Polarimeter (WALOP).
According to the Memorandum of Understanding, the endowment will also be used to boost support for international travel, post-doctorate fellowships and thematic workshops among researchers of IUCAA, said a statement from the Foundation -- the philanthropic arm of Infosys.
IUCAA is an autonomous institution of the University Grants Commission to promote nucleation and growth of active groups in astronomy and astrophysics at Indian universities.
Through the partnership, Infosys Foundation intends to provide impetus to IUCAA's objective of developing a number of advanced and unique instruments for astronomy, the statement said.
WALOP, the instrument that the endowment will support, is currently at the design stage at IUCAA's instrumentation laboratory. It will be used to measure polarization caused by interstellar dust and map the distribution of dust in the Milky Way.
The instrument's uniqueness is in the combined strengths of very wide field polarimetry, high sensitivity and single shot measurement ability, the statement said.
Sudha Murty, Chairperson of Infosys Foundation, said, historically, ancient Indian scientists like Varahamira and Aryabhatta contributed immensely to the field of astronomy.
"The Foundation is excited to collaborate with IUCAA, an institute dedicated to the study of Astronomy and Astrophysics, in their endeavour of developing a new instrument that will greatly benefit the research community," she said.
Subsequent to funding from Infosys Foundation, IUCAA has been successful in garnering funding for the project from reputed international organizations such as the National Science Foundation of USA, the Stavros Niarchos Foundation of Greece and National Research Foundation of South Africa.
"The instrument proposal has gone through reviews in four continents starting with Infosys Foundation in India and has succeeded in all of them. We thank Infosys Foundation to be the first to recognize our proposal worthy of funding which has enabled us to develop the breakthrough technology needed for building this instrument and carry out potentially transformational scientific ventures," said Prof. A N Ramaprakash, Principal Investigator of the project, IUCAA.
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