Nikita is a 5th-year graduate student working with her advisor, Dr.. Dieter Hartmann, in High Energy Astrophysics and Cosmology, particularly understanding the Gamma-ray burst (GRB) progenitors from the cosmic star formation rate. Check out her paper here.
“Constrained the gamma-ray production mechanism of faint and compact galaxies hosting active black holes at their centers. These galaxies contribute significantly to the Extragalactic gamma-ray background due to their abundance in the local Universe. The rate of GRBs, produced from the collapse of massive stars, in the nearby Universe (redshift (z) < 1) and at larger distances (z > 3) is significantly higher than the cosmic star formation rate. This difference in rates indicates the properties of progenitor systems at high and low z values. The signatures in the EGB due to the contribution of SN1a indicate properties of SN1a properties. Particularly, it gives an idea of the time delay required for the mergers of binary progenitor systems.”