Vinay Kumar

Research Scholar

International Centre for Theoretical Sciences

My Research

Broadly, I am interested in Fluid and Plasma Dynamics in Astrophysical settings and computational methods to study such phenomena. In particular, I am looking at magnetic reconnection, a phenomenon where magnetic field lines cut and rejoin resulting in a change in the topology of the fields and the expulsion of a large amount of energy. Reconnection is observed in various places across length scales in the universe - from confinement breakdown in fusion reactors and the magnetic storms in the earths magnetosphere to solar flares, astrophysical jets, and gamma ray bursts. Currently, I am exploring magnetic reconnection in 3D by performing numerical experiments using MHD simulations. The movie below shows one such simulation.

I have also had experience running hydrodynamical simulations for studying various phenomena such as cloud formation and vorticity reconnection.


Reconnecting Flux Tubes

Miscellaneous Documents

A repository of presentations/term papers/ reports

Exploring the Tearing Mode Instability in 3D using Direct Numerical MHD Simulations (Poster Presentation).

Whistler Waves (Presentation + Term Paper).

Torque-dependent Remodeling of the Bacterial Flagellar Motor (Paper Presentation).

Magnetohydrodynamics and The Tearing Mode Instability (Project Report).

Hα Line and its Significance in Astrophysics (Term Paper).

Homogeneous Nucleation (Presentation).

Simulation and Stability of Lagrange Point L1 (Report).

About Me

I am a research scholar in the Astrophysical Relativity group at the International Centre for Theoretical Sciences of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research. I am currently working towards my Ph.D. with Prof. Pallavi Bhat on Astrophysical Fluids and Plasmas.

Prior to joining ICTS, I was a Bachelor's student at the Department of Physics, Jamia Millia Islamia, Delhi. For my detailed CV, click here.

Apart from research, I am involved in listening to, playing, and recording music. I started out by learning Tabla as a kid and am now trying my hands on the electric guitar. I have a YouTube channel where I post music intermittently. Occasionally, I also dabble in Algorithmic Art.