In memoriam - Padma K. Shukla

Physics of Plasmas Editorial Board member, Padma K. Shukla, passed away suddenly on January 26, 2013 in New Delhi, India. Professor Shukla was in India to receive the prestigious Jewel of India Award. The award is bestowed by the Prime Minister of India and it honored Professor Shukla for his outstanding contributions and accomplishments in scientific research. He was a Distinguished Professor and the Director of the International Centre for Advanced Studies in Physical Sciences at the Ruhr University in Bochum, Germany. As a plasma physicist, his research interests ranged from nonlinear plasma physics to high energy density physics but he was known most for his pioneering research contributions to dusty plasmas. PoP Editorial Board member and dusty plasma researcher Professor Robert L. Merlino of the University of Iowa comments that “Padma Shukla was a great friend and colleague, and the international plasma physics community has suffered a great loss of one of its most distinguished and prolific scholars. He will be remembered not only for his prodigious scientific accomplishments, but also for his dedication and kindness in mentoring many young scientists from around the world. It is difficult to imagine a dusty plasma community without him.” Padma Shukla was a highly valued member of the plasma physics community and he will be sorely missed by his many colleagues around the world.

Below is a selection of Professor Padma K. Shukla’s contributions to PoP.
These are now freely available.

Instability and dynamics of two nonlinearly coupled intense laser beams in a quantum plasma
Yunliang Wang, P. K. Shukla, and B. Eliasson
Phys. Plasmas 20, 013103 (2013)

Freak waves in white dwarfs and magnetars
R. Sabry, W. M. Moslem, and P. K. Shukla
Phys. Plasmas 19, 122903 (2012)

Shock waves in a Z-pinch and the formation of high energy density plasma
H. U. Rahman, F. J. Wessel, P. Ney, R. Presura, Rahmat Ellahi, and P. K. Shukla
Phys. Plasmas 19, 122701 (2012)

Quantum ring solitons and nonlocal effects in plasma wake field excitations
R. Fedele, F. Tanjia, S. De Nicola, D. Jovanović, and P. K. Shukla
Phys. Plasmas 19, 102106 (2012)

Twisted dust acoustic waves in dusty plasmas
P. K. Shukla
Phys. Plasmas 19, 083704 (2012)

Linear and nonlinear electrostatic modes in a strongly coupled quantum plasma
Samiran Ghosh, Nikhil Chakrabarti, and P. K. Shukla
Phys. Plasmas 19, 072123 (2012)

Nonlinear propagation of coherent electromagnetic waves in a dense magnetized plasma
P. K. Shukla, B. Eliasson, and L. Stenflo
Phys. Plasmas 19, 072302 (2012)

Cylindrical and spherical dust ion–acoustic solitary waves
A. A. Mamun and P. K. Shukla
Phys. Plasmas 9, 1468 (2002)

A survey of dusty plasma physics
P. K. Shukla
Phys. Plasmas 8, 1791 (2001)

Generation of localized density perturbations by shear Alfvén waves
P. K. Shukla and L. Stenflo
Phys. Plasmas 7, 2738 (2000)

Nonlinear propagation of inertial Alfvén waves in auroral plasmas
P. K. Shukla, L. Stenflo, and R. Bingham
Phys. Plasmas 6, 1677 (1999)

Boundary effects on dust-ion-acoustic and dust-acoustic waves in collisional dusty plasmas
P. K. Shukla and M. Rosenberg
Phys. Plasmas 6, 1038 (1999)

The neutrino electron accelerator
P. K. Shukla, L. Stenflo, R. Bingham, H. A. Bethe, J. M. Dawson, and J. T. Mendonça
Phys. Plasmas 5, 1 (1998)

Effects of vortex‐like and non‐thermal ion distributions on non‐linear dust‐acoustic waves
A. A. Mamun, R. A. Cairns, and P. K. Shukla
Phys. Plasmas 3, 2610 (1996)

Generalized magnetohydrodynamic equations for partially ionized dusty magnetoplasmas: Derivation and applications
G. T. Birk, A. Kopp, and P. K. Shukla
Phys. Plasmas 3, 3564 (1996)