Current Work
In June 2023, NANOGrav (the North American Nanohertz Observatory for Gravitational Waves), among other PTAs, provided very strong evidence for detection of the nanohertz gravitational wave background. This background is theorized to originate from a symphony of supermassive binary black hole mergers. With improved timing precision and more pulsars, we will be able to resolve the signals of individual mergers.
The interstellar medium (ISM), which is the turbulent gas and dust in space, induces propagation effects for pulsar signals. These effects limit the precision of pulsar timing, and improved understanding is necessary. As a NANOGrav Junior Member, the focus of my current research is scattering, temporal broadening of a pulsar signal due to diffraction through variations in electron density in the ISM. Through analysis of scattering, we improve pulsar timing and better understand turbulence in the ISM along the line of sight. Currently we have a paper in preperation on this work.
I spent summer 2024 at Caltech, conducting a research project focused on the circumgalactic medium under the mentorship of Professor Vikram Ravi entitled "Tracing the Milky Way Circum-Galactic Medium With Optical Spectroscopy".
Presentations and Publications
Publications:
Most Recent Presentations:
See more here.
My Interests
As of now, I am interested generally in the origin, evolution, and fundamental behavior of the universe. I am passionate about my current research, because the gravitational waves that NANOGrav has detected probe an abundance of physics including cosmologcial inflation, general relativity, dark matter, and more. Additionally, I am interested in mapping the local interstellar medium and understanding its turbulence in more detail.
