I am broadly interested in high-energy transient astrophysics. My work to date has primarily focussed on various transient phenomena powered by black holes and neutron stars.
Fast Radio Bursts (FRBs) are intense, millisecond-duration pulses of radio waves originating primarily from other Galaxies. First discovered in 2007, these bursts can release as much energy in a fraction of a second as the Sun does in an entire day. While their exact origins remain uncertain, strong evidence suggests that at least some FRBs are produced by magnetars, highly magnetized neutron stars. Magnetars are remnants of massive stars that explode as supernovae, leaving behind a dense core with an extremely powerful magnetic field. This field, billions of times stronger than Earth's, can create violent outbursts through mechanisms such as starquakes or magnetic field restructuring. Starquakes occur when the magnetar crust cracks under immense magnetic stress, releasing a sudden burst of energy. Some FRBs repeat, while others seem to be one-off events. This suggests that different magnetar activity, such as episodic flares or catastrophic energy releases, might be responsible for the observed bursts.
Black hole X-ray binaries (BH-XRBs) are systems where a black hole accretes matter from a companion star, producing intense emission across the electromagnetic spectrum, but particularly at X-ray and radio wavelengths. As matter from the companion star is accreted onto the black hole, it forms an accretion disk, which when in outburst emits powerful X-rays. However, a key feature of BHXBs is their relativistic jets: collimated streams of relativistic plasma ejected from the system. These jets, likely powered by the black hole’s rotation and the strong magnetic fields threading the disk, are studied across the electromagnetic spectrum, from radio waves to X-rays, and sometimes even gamma rays. Understanding exactly how jets are formed, how they accelerate particles to very high-energies and the impact of these energetic outflows on their environment, represent key questions in high-energy astrophysics.