Avadh Behari Bhatia (1921–September 27, 1984[1]) was anIndian-Canadianphysicist who studied electronic transport theory anddiffraction of light byultrasonic waves.[2] His research benefited the fields ofcondensed matter physics andastrophysics.[3]
Bhatia was born in India in 1921. He studied at theUniversities of Allahabad inUttar Pradesh and theUniversity of Liverpool, where he met his second wife[4] (underHerbert Fröhlich) in theUK. The couple were married inRajasthan,India and lived inGujarat for two years before Dr. Bhatia went to work at theUniversity of Edinburgh underMax Born.[5]
With a fellowship from theNational Research Council, he moved to Canada in 1953, joining theUniversity of Alberta two years later.[2] He became a professor in the department in 1960, and was director of theTheoretical Physics Institute from 1964 to 1969.[6]
He wrote in a chapter inPrinciples of Optics on the diffraction oflight byultrasonic waves[6] and his bookUltrasonic Absorption was published byOxford University Press in 1967.[1] He co-authoredMechanics of Deformable Media with R.N. Singh. Some of his publications are under the nameA.B. Bhatia.
Bhatia's second wife,Helen Forrester, was a British-born Canadian novelist and memoir writer. They met in Liverpool and had one son, Robert Bhatia. Robert wrote a book about his parents and their relationship calledPassage Across the Mersey (2017).[5]
Bhatia died after a long-term illness in 1985 and is buried in Saint Anthony Cemetery, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.[7]