I am a senior at MIT majoring physics and minoring in math.
I am interested in high energy astrophysics instrumentation,
as well as black holes, gravitational waves, and geometric aspects of general relativity.
In my free time, I love lifting, MMA, and DJing :)
My resume can be found here.
I am developing computational models to predict the performance of the REDSoX and GOSoX soft X-ray polarimeters. My work focuses on modeling the instruments’ energy-dependent response, including zeroth-order effective area and source count rates for REDSoX's target Mrk 421, and calculating the Minimum Detectable Polarization (MDP). I am currently extending the calculations to include multiple target sources for the GOSoX mission, incorporating background models and more complex XSPEC source spectra, and developing an inverse MDP calculator to determine the exposure time required to reach a specified polarization sensitivity.
I studied the formation of extremal (zero surface temperature) black holes in the spherically symmetric Einstein–Maxwell charged scalar field system. The project aimed to extend recent work on collapse to extremal Reissner–Nordström black holes by removing the coupling constant–mass requirement |eM| ≫ 1 and investigating extremal formation in the case of |eM| ≪ 1.
Physics: General Relativity, Astrophysics II, Quantum I-III
Math: Functional Analysis, Real Analysis, Differential Geometry
Email: roshniko@mit.edu
GitHub: nikokopp