People at the Institute

Mustafa Amin

Mustafa received his undergraduate education in Physics and Mathematics from the University of Texas at Arlington (2003). He received his Ph.D in Physics at Stanford University under Professors Roger Blandford and Robert Wagoner in 2008. He then worked as a postdoctoral fellow (Pappalardo Fellowship 2008-2011, postdoctoral fellow 2011-2012) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

Mustafa Amin has a broad range of interests in theoretical astrophysics and cosmology, ranging from the explosive production of particles after inflation to the nature of gravity on cosmological scales. He often works at the intersection of cosmology and particle physics, benefiting from cross-pollination of ideas and techniques across these disciplines. In regards to the early universe, he is trying to understand how the universe got populated with particles after the end of inflation (reheating/the hot big bang). Questions of interest include: Immediately after inflation, was the universe in a turbulent state or dominated by coherent structures? How rapidly did the energy transfer from the inflation to Standard Model particles take place? How will we be to probe this era observationally? Recently, he has been exploring the copious production of pseudo-solitons (oscillons) from inflation fragmentation and their consequences. With regards to the late universe, he is interested in using the growth of structure and the cosmic microwave background to distinguish between different dark-matter candidates, and to better constrain the sources of cosmic acceleration. He maintains a strong interest in gravitational aspects of astrophysical problems and semi-analytic techniques for understanding the nonlinear growth of structure in the contemporary universe. In the past, he has also worked on dark matter annihilation near relativistic objects and density patterns in accretion discs around blackholes.

Along with research, Mustafa is passionate about teaching and public outreach.

Mustafa Amin