page_title: Ramanath Cowsik
section_title: Legacy
hierarchical_section_title: Ramanath Cowsik / Legacy
caption_attribution_description: English: Astronomers using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope have discovered a ghostly ring of dark matter that formed long ago during a titanic collision between two massive galaxy clusters. The ring's discovery is among the strongest evidence yet that dark matter exists. Astronomers have long suspected the existence of the invisible substance as the source of additional gravity that holds together galaxy clusters. Such clusters would fly apart if they relied only on the gravity from their visible stars. Although astronomers don't know what dark matter is made of, they hypothesize that it is a type of elementary particle that pervades the universe. This Hubble composite image shows the ring of dark matter in the galaxy cluster CL 0024+17. The ring-like structure is evident in the blue map of the cluster's dark matter distribution. The map was derived from Hubble observations of how the gravity of the cluster Cl 0024+17 distorts the light of more distant galaxies, an optical illusion called gravitational lensing. Although astronomers cannot see dark matter, they can infer its existence by mapping the distorted shapes of the background galaxies. The map is superimposed on a Hubble Advanced Camera for Surveys image of the cluster taken in November 2004. Slovenščina: Prstenec tmavej hmoty v kope galaxií CL0024+17. Snímku zhotovil Hubblov vesmírny ďalekohľad v novembri 2004. Prstenec tmavej hmoty má priemer 5 miliónov svetelných rokov. Vznikol pravdepodobne zrážkou dvoch kôp galaxií. (kľúčové slová: tmavá hmota, galaxia, alebo CL0024+17, dark matter, gravitational lensing).
context_page_description: Ramanath Cowsik is an Indian astrophysicist and the James S. McDonnell Professor of Space Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis. He is considered by many as the father of astroparticle physics. A recipient of the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize, Cowsik was honored by the Government of India, in 2002, with the fourth highest Indian civilian award of Padma Shri
context_section_description: Ramanath Cowsik is known for his theories related to the Big Bang origin of the universe. He argued that, post the Big Bang, gravitationally dominant relicts were formed from the particles with finite rest mass, resulting in the formation of halos of dark matter with galaxies embedded within. He postulated that this would limit the sums of masses of neutrinos, a phenomenon known in the scientific world as the Cowsik-McClelland bound. These theories are said to have explained the velocity dispersion of particles of dark matter and reproduced the luminosity profiles and ratified the rotation curves of galaxies.
  Cowsik is credited with the invention of leaky box and nested leaky box models for the observation of optical and infrared wavelength bands of cosmic rays and employing these models, he is known to have established an observatory for optical astronomy in Hanle, Ladakh, at an altitude of 15,000 feet, reported to be the highest observatory in the world. The observatory is controlled remotely from Bangalore and is operational year round. He is involved in experiments related to Grand Unified Theory and attempts to probe violations of the inverse square law of gravity at sub-millimeter scales. His scientific paper on the role of neutrinos was included by the American Physical Society and the Physics Review magazine, in their selection of 1000 most important scientific papers of the century.
  Cowsik has reported contributions towards understanding highly energetic phenomena in astrophysics such as cosmic ray, pulsar, supernova remnant, gamma ray burst, active galactic nucleus and other similar sources powered by accretion flows. His studies cover the diffuse non thermal radiations found all over space as well as radiations from discrete astronomical sources. His experiments are known to be interdisciplinary in nature and bridge the gap between universal phenomena and experimental physics. He has conducted extensive research on pre-solar grains of aluminum oxide found in meteorites and has devised a methodology to assess the age of the universe from them.
  Ramanath Cowsik is credited with the first detailed calculations on neutrino fluxes generated atmospheric cosmic ray interactions and observations of the same in underground detectors. These findings have been known to have assisted in the discovery of neutrino oscillations at Super-Kamiokande observatory in Japan. He is also known to have made the longest half-life measured in the world which related to that of double beta decay of Te-128, as 7.7 x 1024 years. He has also conducted studies on finite temperature corrections to the Casimir forces occur at large separations. Cowsik has developed a sensitive torsion balance using which he conducted the first laboratory experiment for the so-called fifth force. He is involved in the development of a more sensitive torsion balance for probing the violations of the Inverse-square law of gravity at millimeter scales,
  Cowsik, who has drawn comparison with the renowned physicist, Enrico Fermi for his achievements in theoretical and experimental physics, has published his experiments and observations in several scientific papers published in peer reviewed journals and ResearchGate, an online repository has listed 193 of them. He has attended several seminars and conferences and has delivered keynote addresses on astrophysics and the relationship between religion and science. He has edited three books, including "Cosmic Pathways", a collection of essays in physics and astrophysics. He has also assisted other scientists in ratifying their experiments by acting as a reference point; his involvement in the OPERA experiment, a CERN, Geneva and the Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso, Gran Sasso collaboration was one such instance.
caption: Dark matter is invisible. Based on the effect of gravitational lensing, a ring of  dark matter has been detected in this image of a galaxy cluster (CL0024+17) and is represented in blue.[16]
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