Raman Research Institute, Bengaluru

Established in 1948, Raman Research Institute is an autonomous research institute pursuing research in the basic sciences. The main areas of research at the Institute are Theoretical Physics (TP), Soft Condensed Matter (SCM), Light and Matter Physics (LAMP) and Astronomy and Astrophysics (AA), of which, special emphasis goes to AA for its ongoing participation in the global radio astronomy project, Murchison Widefield Array (MWA). MWA is a radio telescope located in Murchison Shire, Western Australia whose digital receivers were designed and built at RRI. It has been successfully operating in full scientific mode since mid-2013 and is expected to provide astronomers at RRI and in the US and Australia an insight into the dramatic evolution experienced by primordial cosmic gas into the very first stars and galaxies of the early universe.