American College to Get INO Centre Today

MADURAI: The collaborative research lab at the American College, set up as part of the `1,350 crore India-based Neutrino Observatory (INO), would be inaugurated by G Srinivas, joint secretary, University Grants Commission, South Eastern Regional Office, here on Saturday.

With the launch of the facility, the city-based institution will become the only college in the country to be part of the project, touted as the biggest ever research activity undertaken in the country since independence. The rest of the participants are major universities, including the IITs.

The INO aims at studying Neutrinos, which are invisible particles from all parts of the cosmos, to understand the birth, evolution and the future of the universe.

S Stephen Raj Kumar, a faculty in the physics department at the American College and also the head of the lab at the institution, said, “The Board of Nuclear Studies, Department of Atomic Energy, gave approval for the INO lab at the college a few weeks ago. It is a collaborative research lab that will carry out simulation studies for the iron calorimeter (ICAL) of the INO on the college premises.”

M Davamani Christober, principal, American College, said, “This collaborative process is part of an experimental process, through which the institution is entering into the research activities of the INO.”