Predhiman Krishan Kaw
Predhiman Krishan Kaw, an internationally acclaimed plasma physicist and the chief architect of India’s nuclear fusion program, passed away suddenly on 18 June 2017. A brilliant scientist who made significant contributions to many areas of plasma physics, Predhiman was also a wonderful teacher, a prolific researcher (with more than 400 research publications), an inspiring leader, and a man of great scientific vision.
He was born in Kashmir on 15 January 1948. He was a child prodigy who received his early schooling at home and went on to obtain his master’s degree at age 16 and a PhD at age 18 from the Indian Institute of Technology in Delhi. Thereafter, he joined the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory for postdoctoral research. His work during this period of 1967–71 resulted in seminal contributions to the then emerging field of high power laser–plasma interactions in inertial-confinement fusion experiments. His foundational work on the nonlinear physics of laser–plasma parametric instabilities helped to explain the anomalously large absorption as well as back and side scattering and filamentation of laser light due to ponderomotive forces in plasmas. His work on relativistic nonlinear effects similarly found application in pulsar radiation phenomena. From 1971 to 1975, he worked at the Physical Research Laboratory (PRL) in Ahmedabad, India, where he made important contributions to the theory of ionospheric irregularities and also initiated laboratory experiments to simulate some of the ionospheric phenomena, thereby planting a seed for future experimental plasma physics activities in India.
In 1975 Predhiman went back to Princeton, took up research on magnetically confined fusion plasmas, and made several pioneering contributions in that area. He showed that the decades-old conventional wisdom on the stability of drift waves in sheared geometry (a prime candidate for transport in fusion devices) was incorrect. He also demonstrated the existence of a coalescence instability of magnetic islands that can be important in diverse phenomena such as disruption in tokamaks, energy release in solar flares, and substorm effects in tail regions of the magnetosphere.
Predhiman also conceived and spearheaded the national magnetic fusion program in India. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, he and some of his colleagues at PRL succeeded in persuading the Department of Science and Technology of the Government of India to set up a major program of plasma physics at PRL. He returned to India in 1982 to head that program, which eventually evolved into the Institute for Plasma Research. Under his leadership and guidance, the Institute made remarkable progress on several fronts and in a short time put India on the world map of fusion research and also earned the country a membership in the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) project. During the formative years of ITER, Predhiman played a very important role as chairman of the ITER STAC, the Science and Technology Advisory Committee of ITER, by making sure that there was no compromise in the final scientific and technical objectives of ITER.
For his outstanding contributions and achievements, Predhiman received many honors and awards, including the Indian government’s prestigious Padma Shri award in 1985 and the SS Bhatnagar award in 1986. Most recently he was awarded the Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar Prize for “outstanding contributions” in the field of plasma physics by the Association of Asia Pacific Plasma Physics Societies.
Predhiman was a passionate scientist and a great teacher who never tired of promoting the cause of science and fusion. He spent an enormous time mentoring students and younger colleagues. As a human being he was extraordinarily kind and gentle with infinite patience, particularly for younger colleagues. Those qualities, coupled with his infectious enthusiasm for research, his sense of humor, and his informal behavior, attracted many students and scientists, not only from within the Institute but also from universities and the scientific community abroad as research collaborators. Each one of them felt enriched and emotionally touched by his warmth and generosity of spirit. In his more than 50 years of active scientific life, Predhiman not only contributed significantly to the progress of plasma physics worldwide but also inspired a lot of young minds and touched a great many human lives in an uplifting manner. He will be greatly missed by all of them. He leaves behind an invaluable legacy in science and humanity.
Kaw is survived by his wife, Saroj, and children, Sidharth, Prashant, and Puja.
