PhD Research

My PhD research dealt with a few select problems in the field of theoretical astrophysics. Breaking a bit with convention, I studied three problems that were to some extent independent of each other, but were, nonetheless, within the wider domain of planetary astrophysics. Specifically, I investigated the

• the stability of charged particle motion in planetary magnetospheres which led to discovering the (quirky and counterintuitive) possibility of instability due to dissipation.
• the effect of magnetic diffusion on the stability of gaseous disks around young stars which led to exploring the theoretical possibility of predominantly hydrodynamic turbulence in a magnetized gas disk.
• the atmospheric thermal structure of (exo)planets which led to deriving the most general thermal planar atmospheric structure using the radiative transfer theory.

For the details, please take a look at my PhD thesis and my publications.