School of Physics

Department of Nonlinear Dynamics

The Centre for Nonlinear Dynamics was created in recognition of the excellent contributions made to the field of nonlinear dynamics at the international level and in recognition of the S. S. Bhatnagar prize (nation's highest science prize) in Physical Sciences awarded to Prof. M. Lakshmanan (at present Professor of Eminence in the Centre for Nonlinear Dynamics, School of Physics) in 1990 to promote research in this area. In the subsequent years, it was liberally supported by the Department of Science and Technology (DST) and the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE), Government of India towards the development of infrastructure, manpower, library and computational facilities. Today, the Centre is recognized as one of the top-ranking Centres of excellence in Nonlinear Dynamics at the National and International levels. The Centre has three regular faculty members (1 Professor, One Associate Professor and 1 Assistant Professor) besides Dr. M. Lakshmanan as Professor of Eminence and two more faculty members (1 Professor and 1 Assistant Professor) from the Department of Physics forming the Nonlinear Dynamics group. About 33 research scholars have obtained their Ph.D degree in Nonlinear Dynamics so far and at present 22 students are pursuing their research towards Ph.D degree. More than 25 post-doctoral fellows have worked at the Centre and at present 6 post-doctoral fellow are working. In addition, the Centre receives a regular stream of visiting scholars and scientists from within India and abroad for collaborative research and for discussion.

The Centre has a very strong expertise in the theoretical, experimental and application aspects of integrable systems, solitons, optical solitons, solitons in ordered magnetic systems magnetization switching dynamics solitons in protein and liquid crystals, solitons in DNA molecules, chaos, quantum chaos, chaos synchronization, time delayed dynamical systems, Bose-Einstein condensation, spatio-temporal patterns, and nonlinear electronic circuits and systems. During a span of 25 years or so the Centre has published more than 500 research articles, in internationally reputed scientific journals with high impact factor, and ten books. It has organized several national and international conferences, workshops and schools and other meetings in different areas of Nonlinear Dynamics and Physics. The faculty and students of the Centre have received invitations to visit and collaborate with reputed groups in many international institutions, both inside and outside the country. Several prestigious awards and recognitions at the national and international levels have also been received by members of the faculty including S. S. Bhatnagar Prize, Tamilnadu Scientist Award, Goyal Prize, R. D. Birla Award, Fellowships of Science Academies, Membership of Editorial Boards of prestigious journals, Post-Doctoral research Fellowships abroad, Associateship by reputed institutes in abroad, Guest and Visiting Scientist positions, etc. The Centre has been identified as one of nodal points for Theoretical Physics Seminar Circuit (TPSC) programme by DST. It has also developed a close association with the Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics, Trieste, Italy.

Several research funding agencies such as DAE, DST, UGC, CSIR, INSA, NBHM, etc. have sponsored research projects at the Centre. The Centre for Nonlinear Dynamics has been identified as a Centre for Intensification of Research in High Priority Areas around outstanding persons (IRHPA) by DST. Grants to the tune of Rs. 87.00 lakhs (1996-2002) and Rs.1.00 crore (2002-2008) has been sanctioned to carry out research at the Centre and an enhanced grant of Rs.3.5 crores has been sanctioned for the period 2008-2015 by DST. During the past 15 years, a Library grant on an average to the tune of Rs. 4.0-5.0 lakhs per annum for this Centre has been sanctioned by DAE-NBHM. The Centre has developed a high performance computing facility through support received mainly from DST.

From the academic year 2018-2019 the Centre for Nonlinear Dynamics has been reconstructed into the Department of Nonlinear Dynamics under School of Physics.