Education
Oct 2020 – Present: Ph.D. student, Astrophysics.
Institute of Space Science (CSIC-ICE) & Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB)
Thesis title: Search for transient events and pulsars in multi-frequency data
Advisor: Dr. Nanda Rea (ICE-CSIC)
Feb 2017 – Dec 2019: Master of Science (M.Sc), Astrophysics and Space Science Program (NASSP).
University of Cape Town (UCT) & Collaborated: South African Radio Astronomical Observatory (SARAO) & South African Astronomical Observatory (SAAO)
Thesis title: Dispersion measure variations in pulsar observations with LOFAR.
Advisors: Dr. Maciej Serylak (SARAO) and Dr. Shazrene Mohamed (SAAO)
Jan 2016 – Dec 2016: Honours of Science (B.Sc.H), Astrophysics and Space Science (NASSP). University of Cape Town (UCT), Astronomy Department.
Thesis title: Binary black hole mergers – Gravitational waves and horizon dynamics
Advisor: Prof. Denis Pollney, Rhodes University, South Africa.
Aug 2008 – Jan 2012: Bachelor of Science (B.Sc), Astronomy and Meteorology.
Omdurman Islamic University (OIU), Department of Astronomy and Meteorology, Sudan.
Thesis title: The relationship between meteorology and flight navigation
Advisor: Prof. Mohamed Habib Elkanzi, Omdurman Islamic University (OIU), Sudan.
Research
My current Ph.D. project is mainly focused on searching for pulsars and transients from multi-band frequency (i.e. from Radio to Gamma-ray). This will be achieved by developing a pipeline to perform the searching and look for pulsar candidates. In a later stage, the project will also involve using Machine Learning algorithms to manage the classification of the produced images which will increase the searching processes.
My master project:
I present an analysis of the dispersion measure (DM) variations for 68 pulsars. The observations were taken using six International LOFAR Stations in Europe over the period of 3.5 years (between June 2014 and November 2017) at the centre frequency of 150 MHz with 80 MHz of bandwidth. During this time each pulsar was observed on a weekly basis, resulting in an average of 160 observations per source.
I show that the variations of the DM measurements present various trends along the span of the observation e.g increasing or decreasing, and in some cases more changes from one trend to another.
I perform the structure-function analysis to check whether the measured DM variations follow the Kolmogorov power spectrum or not ( this spectrum describes the turbulence structure of the interstellar medium (ISM)).
The result shows that a number of pulsars appear to be consistent with the Kolmogorov distribution (e.g. PSRs J1913−0440 and J2157+4017) while other sources show significant differences (e.g. PSRs J0108+6608 and J0614+2229). I also obtain the DM derivatives (i.e. dDM/dt) for each pulsar, in order to examine the correlation between the DM and its derivative.
The result of this correlation shows the best fit with a square-root dependence of 0.6±0.2, which is comparable with the result that was previously obtained by Hobbs et al. (2004), who shows a dependence of square-root between the DM and its derivative; with a gradient of 0.57±0.09.
Finally, one of the major results of this study, thanks the pulsar timing analysis, allowed me to produce a new timing solution for three pulsars: PSRs J0613+3731, J0815+4611, and J1740+27.
Teaching experience
Sep 2012 – Feb 2014
Tutor, Omdurman Islamic University, Department of Astronomy and Meteorology, Sudan. Teaching the practical part of the Geographic Information System and Remote Sensing and Photogrammetry courses for second and third-year students.
Feb 2014 – Jan 2016
Teaching Assistant, Omdurman Islamic University, Department of Astronomy and Meteorology, Sudan.
Teaching astronomical & meteorological glossary courses and the practical part of Geographic Information System, and Remote Sensing and Photogrammetry courses for second and third-year students.
Nov 2019 – June 2020
Lecturer, Omdurman Islamic University, Department of Astronomy and Meteorology, Sudan.
Courses: Astronomical Application, General Astrophysics for the second and fifth-year students