Research Areas

Supernova Cosmology

Type Ia Supernovae (SNe Ia) are standardizable candles that are extensively used to measure the cosmic expansion history. SNe Ia helped in measuring the expansion rate of the Universe, known as the Hubble-Lemaitre constant ($H_0$), to 1% precision. SNe Ia also led to the surprising discovery of cosmic acceleration, for which an unknown force, termed dark energy, is believed to be responsible. The nature of dark energy is highly debatable from recent analysis. At the same time the value of $H_0$ is in tension due to a $5-\sigma$ mismatch of its measurements from early and late time Universe. We are undertaking a number of studies to address the issues involving $H_0$ and dark energy.

Studying cosmic acceleration and Hubble tension through astrophysical systematics (suitable for postbac or MSc students):
1. Effect of Host Galaxy Age on the Luminosity of Type Ia Supernovae.
2. Effect of Local Environment on the Luminosity of Type Ia Supernovae.
Comparing SN Ia luminosity calibration across various light-curve fitters.
Improving SN Ia standard candles through analysing spectra of their hosts.
Building a pipeline for spectral analysis of SNe Ia.

People: SA Uddin.

Transient Astronomy

Transient events showcase a variety of astrophysical events, such as, supernova, gamma-ray bursts etc. They fall within time-domain astronomy with characteristic timescales between milliseconds to days. The Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST) will be discovering millions of transients every night. While follow-up of these transients is a challenging task, worldwide coordinated efforts are going on. In Bangladesh, we aim to initiate such transient follow-up facilities in order to characterize and discover previously unknown transients. Below are some projects related to this area.

Designing a multiband filter optimized for supernova follow-up (postbac or MSc students).
Designing a TOM toolkit for the 0.5-m telescope (upon agreement by the Rajshahi Novotheatre).
Robotosizing the 0.5-m telescope for remote operation (upon agreement by the Rajshahi Novotheatre).
Observing transients with the Unistellar telescopes of Durbin (citizen science).

People: SA uddin.

Hydrogen Cosmology

The goal of this area is to facilitate the detection of cosmic neutral hydrogen (HI) from the dark ages and the cosmic dawn (the first 400 million years of the universe). HI emits a signal of 21-cm wavelength (1420 MHz) which can be used to create a tomographic map of the universe in three dimensions, the third dimension being time. The most advanced single-dish or array radio telescopes (ART) that exist today cannot detect the 21-cm signal, but some telescopes are getting very close to detecting its power spectrum (PS). One of the main motivations behind building the largest ART, the Square Kilometre Array (SKA), is the mapping of HI via the 21-cm signal. In order to detect the signal with substantial signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), the systematic effects of the instruments and the contamination by various extragalactic and Galactic foregrounds must be known with high precision. Moreover, after removing the foregrounds with the associated instrumental effects, the residual noise-like signal must match with the simulated emission of cosmic hydrogen predicted by theoretical models. Therefore, simulation, instrumentation, theory and observation (SITO), all four aspects of science are essential for this project.

People: KMB Asad.

Galaxies and the Intergalactic Medium

Research areas of the core and associate members

Name	Institution	Research Area	Specific Research Focus	Email
Ahad, SL	Waterloo	Extragalactic Astronomy	Galaxy evolution, particularly interactions within galaxy groups and clusters.	[email protected]
Ananna, TT	Wayne State	High-Energy Astrophysics	Active Galactic Nuclei (AGNs), Supermassive Black Hole accretion history, and X-ray background.	[email protected]
Asad, KMB	IUB	Cosmology & Early Universe	Epoch of Reionization (EoR), Cosmic Dawn, Galaxy Clusters, Radio Astronomy.	[email protected]
Bahauddin, SM	UC Boulder	Solar Physics	Heliophysics, Solar Corona, Magnetohydrodynamics (MHD), and Nanophotonics.	[email protected]
Chowdhury, MH	IUB	Instrumentation	Photonics and applied optics for astronomical instrumentation.	[email protected]
Karim, T	Toronto	Cosmology	Large-Scale Structures, Dark Energy, Dark Matter, and Emission-Line Galaxies (ELGs).	[email protected]
Momen, MA	IUB	Theoretical Physics	Fundamental theoretical physics and mathematical formulations.	[email protected]
Mowla, LA	Wellesley	Cosmology & Galaxy Evolution	Formation and structural evolution of galaxies since Cosmic Dawn; James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) observations.	[email protected]
Saikia, P	Yale	High-Energy Astrophysics	Black hole accretion, Relativistic jets, X-ray binaries, and Multi-wavelength astronomy.	[email protected]
Shajib, AJ	Chicago	Cosmology	Hubble Constant measurements, Strong Gravitational Lensing, and Dark Energy constraints.	[email protected]
Tanvir, TS	Iowa State	Stellar Physics	Star formation, Stellar Feedback, and the Initial Mass Function (IMF).	[email protected]
Uddin, SA	IUB	Cosmology & Transients	Supernova cosmology, cosmic distance scales, and transient astronomy.	[email protected]