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Mukul Bhattacharya

Mukul Bhattacharya — Eberly Research Scholar — Postdoc
Office: 320A Osmond Laboratory
Address: 104 Davey Lab #52, University Park, PA 16802
mmb5946@psu.edu
Mukul Bhattacharya
Astronomy Physics Cosmic Rays Gravitational Waves Multimessenger Astrophysics Neutrinos CMA

I am an Eberly Postdoctoral Scholar in Physics at Penn State. My research involves theoretical modelling of physical processes operating in high-energy transients (e.g. GRBs, FRBs, BNS/BHNS mergers) and predicting future observations from the next-generation telescopes. I obtained my Ph.D. in Physics from UT Austin in 2020, where my dissertation focussed on modelling source properties and population distributions of FRBs. Prior to joining Penn State, I was a postdoctoral research associate at Virginia Tech, Blacksburg.

I have been actively developing theoretical models and computational tools necessary to address questions like: What are the sources and composition for ultra-high-energy cosmic ray particles? How can we efficiently follow-up the EM counterparts from GW signals? How do we constrain the source properties of FRBs directly from their observables? What is the radiation mechanism for the GRB prompt emission spectrum? Please visit https://mukulbhattacharya1.wixsite.com/mukulb for links to my CV, list of publications and detailed explanation of my research work. I may be reached at mmb5946@psu.edu.

Publications
  1. Mukul Bhattacharya, Alexander Hackett, Abhay Gupta, Christopher Tout, Banibrata Mukhopadhyay “Evolution of Highly Magnetic White Dwarfs by Field Decay and Cooling: Theory and Simulations.” ApJ 925 2 (2022) doi:10.3847/1538-4357/ac450b
  2. Nick Ekanger, Mukul Bhattacharya, Shunsaku Horiuchi “Systematic exploration of heavy element nucleosynthesis in protomagnetar outflows.” MNRAS (2022) doi:10.1093/mnras/stac896
  3. Mukul Bhattacharya, Shunsaku Horiuchi, Kohta Murase “On the synthesis of heavy nuclei in protomagnetar outflows and implications for ultra-high energy cosmic rays.” arXiv e-prints (2021)
  4. Mukul Bhattacharya, Pawan Kumar, Eric Linder “Fast radio burst dispersion measure distribution as a probe of helium reionization.” PRD 103 10 (2021) doi:10.1103/PhysRevD.103.103526
  5. Mukul Bhattacharya, Pawan Kumar “Population Modeling of Fast Radio Bursts from Source Properties.” ApJ 899 2 (2020) doi:10.3847/1538-4357/aba8fb
  6. Mukul Bhattacharya, Pawan Kumar “Explaining GRB prompt emission with sub-photospheric dissipation and Comptonization.” MNRAS 491 4 (2020) doi:10.1093/mnras/stz3182
  7. Mukul Bhattacharya, Pawan Kumar, George Smoot “Mergers of black hole-neutron star binaries and rates of associated electromagnetic counterparts.” MNRAS 486 4 (2019) doi:10.1093/mnras/stz1147
  8. Mukul Bhattacharya, Banibrata Mukhopadhyay, Subroto Mukerjee “Luminosity and cooling of highly magnetized white dwarfs: suppression of luminosity by strong magnetic fields.” MNRAS 477 2 (2018) doi:10.1093/mnras/sty776
  9. Pawan Kumar, Wenbin Lu, Mukul Bhattacharya “Fast radio burst source properties and curvature radiation model.” MNRAS 468 3 (2017) doi:10.1093/mnras/stx665
About our wordmark
Monica Rincon Ramirez

The IGC wordmark was created by Monica Rincon Ramirez while she was a graduate student at the Institute. Monica enjoys drawing new connections between fundamental theory and observations. Her graduate work included general relativity, loop quantum gravity, and quantum fields in cosmological backgrounds; her thesis focused on effective quantum corrections to gravitational phenomena from spinfoams and applications to cosmology. She received her PhD in 2024.

The wordmark symbolizes the scope of research at the IGC. The base represents quantum gravity, evoking the quantum geometrical picture from spinfoams and loop quantum gravity — approaches studied at the Center for Fundamental Theory. The middle shows galaxies embedded in a smooth surface characteristic of spacetime in general relativity and the larger physical scales studied at the Center for Theoretical and Observational Cosmology. The top curves to an extreme representing a supermassive black hole accompanied by an energetic jet, with a binary black hole pair nearby — the high-energy phenomena studied at the Center for Multimessenger Astrophysics.