MSV-2035 Astronomy Document - Inside Design - FINAL - FINAL

Astronomy & Astrophysics 114 experts and industrial partners fromwhich resources for various projects can be drawn. It is imperative that Indian industries are actively involved in fulfilling in-kind commitments towards various international projects and in building our own large facilities. The document highlights the ongoing successful industry-academia collaborations in different projects, and provides (in the Annexure) a list of the industries that are engagedwith themega projects. The success of our country's investment in the mega science projects to generate high-impact scientific output depends on the size and quality of the astronomy community that will eventually use these advanced facilities. Section 8 of this document focuses on this aspect. Statistics presented in this Section clearly indicates a steady growth of the A&A community over the last two decades, as well as an increase in the number, and impact, of publications in national and international scientific journals. The achievements have been remarkable, considering the fact that the observatories, computing resources, and infrastructural facilities available to the Indian community are significantly fewer and smaller than those available internationally. The document strongly recommends that a fraction of the funds allocated for mega projects be dedicated for capacity building, training and outreach activities. With a focus on developing young work-force, the document lists several steps that can be taken at different levels (PhD, postgraduate and undergraduate, and school) to attract and train young students in Astronomy & Astrophysics and cutting-edge technologies. The document also emphasizes the need for keeping the general public up-to-date with the scientific developments. Various suggestions for achieving this are also provided. The document highlights possible synergy between A&A and other research areas (Section 9). In particular, astrochemistry, and use of quantum technology, artificial intelligence andmachine learning. The funding (tentative) required for the various projects as well as for developing an ecosystem that will enable sustained and effective use of themega facilities is indicated in theAnnexure. Recommendations: For Indian astronomy to be in the same league as the rest of the world, it is important to have access to large observing and high-end computing facilities. This document makes several recommendations in this regard. The salient recommendations are provided here. It is evident from the discussions presented in Sections 3 and 4 that growth of the Indian community to a critical level is required in certain research areas (exoplanet science, transients, numerical relativity, realistic magneto-hydrodynamical simulations, large instrumentation and large data handling) to exploit the capabilities of the upcoming large facilities to the fullest. It is important for India to have access to the best multi-wavelength and multi-messenger observing facilities in the world, through international collaborations. In particular, it is important to be part of any evolving new research area or technology in the coming decades. This is very important to sustain the scientific ascendancy the communitymay gain from themega projects. • • MEGA SCIENCE VISION-2035