Department of Physics

School of Natural Sciences and Mathematics

Mustapha Ishak-Boushaki
Assistant Professor
FO 2.322
972-883-2815

Faculty Profile

Mustapha Ishak-Boushaki, Ph.D.

Education

B.A.Sc. in Computer Sciences at U.Q.A.Montreal, Canada.
B.Sc. in Physics at University of Montreal, Canada.
Ph.D. in Cosmology and General Relativity at Queen's University at Kingston, Canada.
Research Associate in Cosmology at Princeton University, New Jersey, USA


For a picture gallery of me and my family click here.

For my Curriculum Vitae (CV) click here.

Overview

I completed my Ph.D. (2003) in Cosmology and General Relativity with Prof. Kayll Lake at the Physics Department at Queen's University at Kingston in Canada. Then, I joined the Physics Department at Princeton University as a postdoctoral fellow where I worked on projects in cosmology and gravitational lensing with Prof. Steinhardt, Prof. Seljak and several other researchers. After that, I worked as a Research Associate at the Astrophysical Sciences Department at Princeton in collaboration with Prof. Spergel and other researchers. While there, I organized the Princeton & IAS Gravitational Lensing Seminar and taught at both the Astrophysics Department (Astro 203) and at the Physics Department (Physics 103).

I started an assistant professor position at the Department of Physics at the University of Texas at Dallas on August 2005, where I formed the new Astrophysics, Cosmology, and Relativity Group.

My recent research projects and interests are in Modern Cosmology, General Relativity, and at their  intersection (see next section).  I am involved in both theoretical and data-related projects. For a partial list of my papers at Los Almos Archive click here (astro-ph), click here (gr-qc), For a partial list of my papers at NASA ADS click here.

I very much enjoy teaching and supervising graduate and undergraduate students for research work. The courses I taught at UTD include PHYS2325 Mechanics (undergraduate course), PHYS3312 Classical Mechanics (undergraduate), and PHYS5395 Cosmology (graduate). I received the 2007 Outstanding Teaching Award from the School of Natural Sciences and Mathematics at UTD .

Research Interests

For a complete list, see the Astrophysics, Cosmology, and Relativity Group home page.

  • Gravitational Lensing and applications to cosmology
  • The Acceleration of the expansion of the Universe: Cosmological Constant, Dark Energy, ...
  • Constraining cosmological parameters and cosmological models using probes such as gravitational lensing, the cosmic microwave background (CMB), and supernova searches.
  • General Relativity and Cosmological Exact Solutions to Einstein's Equations
  • Higher dimensional cosmological models
  • Projects at the intersection of modern cosmology and General Relativity
  • Junction conditions for matching space-times and constructing wormholes and spacetime thin-shells
  • Computer Algebra (symbolic computing) and application to cosmology and general relativity

Astrophysics, Cosmology, and Relativity student group

My research student group in cosmology currently counts 3 full-time graduate students (Jacob Moldenhauer, Jim Richardson, Delilah Whittington), 5 part-time graduate students (Jeffrey Scott, Brian Troup, Anthony Nwankwo, David Garred, and Chris Allison) and 2 undergraduate students (Jason Dossett and John Wilson). All are attending the weekly cosmology research group meetings and are working on specific projects with me and are participating in the preparation of scientific journal papers. I am very grateful to the continuous encouragement and help from good colleague Dr. Wolfgang Rindler.


Cosmology student group

Cosmology student group
From left to right: Dr. Mustapha Ishak-Boushaki, Jacob Moldenhauer, James Richardson, Chris Allison, Jason Dossett, Jeffrey Scott, David, Garred, Delilah Whittington, Anthony Nwankwo, Brian Troup, and Dr. Wolgang Rindler.


Publications, talks, presentations, colloquia, workshops, collaborations, and software:

Journal Papers:

  1. " Dark Energy or Apparent Acceleration Due to a Relativistic Cosmological Model More Complex than FLRW?" (2007) Mustapha Ishak, James Richardson, Delilah Whittington, David Garred. Submitted to Physical Review D. Paper available at astro-ph:0708.2943.

  2. " Inverse approach to Einstein's equations for fluids with vanishing anisotropic stress tensor " (2007) James Richardson, Mustapha Ishak Submitted to Physical Review D. Paper available at gr-qc:0707.135.

  3. " The Contribution of the Cosmological Constant to the Relativistic Bending of light Revisited " Wolfgang Rindler and Mustapha Ishak Physical Review D, 71, 023002 (2007) . Paper available at astro-ph:0709.2948 .

  4. " Remarks on the formulation of the cosmological constant/dark energy questions(2007) " Mustapha Ishak. Foundations of Physics, Volume 37, Number 10, (2007) 1470-1498 . Paper available at astro-ph/0504416.

  5. " Intrinsic galaxy alignments from the 2SLAQ and SDSS surveys: luminosity and redshift scalings and implications for weak lensing surveys(2007) " (2007) Christopher M. Hirata, Rachel Mandelbaum, Mustapha Ishak, Uros Seljak, Robert Nichol, Kevin A. Pimblet, Nicholas P. Ross, David Wake. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (at press) Paper available at astro-ph/0701671 .

  6. "Probing Cosmic Acceleration Beyond the Equation of State: Distinguishing between Dark Energy and Modified Gravity Models" Mustapha Ishak, Amol Upadhye, David N. Spergel (2005). Preprint available at astro-ph/0507184. strong>Physical Review D, 74, 043513 (2006).
    Or click here at NASA' Beyond Einstein web site.
    Or related article in Astronomy Magazine.

  7. "Probing decisive answers to dark energy questions from cosmic complementarity and lensing tomography" Mustapha Ishak (2005). Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, V363, issue 2, p469 (2005) . Paper available at astro-ph/0501594 .

  8. "Dynamical dark energy: Current constraints and forecasts" Amol Upadhye, Mustapha Ishak, Paul J. Steinhardt (2004). Physical Review D, 72, 063501 (2005) . Preprint available at astro-ph/0411803 .

  9. "Detection of large scale intrinsic ellipticity-density correlation from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey and implications for weak lens ing surveys" Rachel Mandelbaum, Christopher M. Hirata, Mustapha Ishak, Uros Seljak, Jonathan Brinkmann (2005). Preprint available at astro-ph/0509026. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 367 (2006) 611-626.

  10. "Spectroscopic source redshifts and parameter constraints from weak lensing and CMB" Mustapha Ishak and Christopher M. Hirata (2004). Physical Review D, 71, 023002 (2005) . Paper available at astro-ph/0405042 .

  11. "Weak Lensing and CMB: Parameter forecasts including a running spectral index" Mustapha Ishak, Christopher M. Hirata, Patrick McDonald, Uros Seljak (2003). Physical Review D, 69, 083914 (2004) . Paper available at astro-ph/0308446 .

  12. "On Perfect Fluid Models In Non-Comoving Null (Observational) Spherical Coordinates," Mustapha Ishak (2003). Physical Review D, 69 , 124027 (2004) . Paper available at gr-qc/0405099 .

  13. "An Inverse Approach to Einstein's Equations for non-conducting fluids" Mustapha Ishak and Kayll Lake (2003). Physical Review D, 68 , 104031 (2003) . Paper available at gr-qc/0304065 .

  14. "Adiabatic Models of the Cosmological Radiative Era," Roberto A. Sussman and Mustapha Ishak. General Relativity and Gravitation, Vol. 34, No. 10, (2002). Paper available at gr-qc/0111010 .

  15. "Stability of Transparent Spherically Symmetric Thin Shells and Wormholes," Ishak Mustapha and Kayll Lake. Physical Review D, 65 , 044011 (2002) . Paper also available at gr-qc/0108058.

  16. "Interactive Geometric Database, Including Exact Solutions of Einstein's Field Equations," Mustapha Ishak and Kayll Lake. ,Classical and Quantum Gravity, 19 , 505-514 (2002) . Paper also available at gr-qc/0111008 . GRDB Version 1.0 was released on July 2001, and is available at http://grdb.org.

  17. "The Tolman VII solution, trapped null orbits and w-modes," Nicholas Neary, Mustapha Ishak and Kayll Lake. Physical Review D, 64, 028001 (2001) . Paper also available at gr-qc/0104002.

  18. "Exact solutions with w-modes," Mustapha Ishak, Luke Chamandy, Nicholas Neary and Kayll Lake. Physical Review D, 64, 024005 (2001) .Paper also available at gr-qc/0007073.

Invited talks, presentations, and colloquia:

  • " “Dark Energy versus Modified Gravity Models: Probing Cosmic Acceleration Beyond the Equation of State”. Selected presentation at the Origin of Dark Energy Conference, Waterloo, ON, (May 2007).


  • " “Cosmic acceleration: Dark Energy or Modified gravity?” Colloquium given at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Baltimore, MA (June, 2006).


  • " “Cosmic Acceleration: A Dark Energy Component or a Signature of Modified Gravity at Cosmological Scales?” Colloquium given at the Southern Methodist University, Dallas, TX (October 2006).


  • " “Gravitational Weak Lensing and Cosmic Acceleration” Seminar given at the 1st Texas Cosmology Network Meeting at the University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX (September, 2006).


  • " “Recent progress in cosmology and the cosmic acceleration problem” Colloquium given at the Physics Department at Austin College, Sherman, TX. (November 2005). “Probing decisive answers to dark energy questions from cosmic complementarity and lensing tomography”, Selected talk at the 3rd Oxford-Princeton Workshop on Cosmology, Princeton, NJ (March 2005).


  • " “Dark Energy Questions and Cosmological Probe” Colloquium given at the Physics Department of the University of Texas at Dallas, Dallas, (February 2005).


  • " “Dynamical Dark Energy: Current and future constraints from cosmic complementarity and weak lensing tomography” Workshop on Gravitational Lensing, Dark Energy, and Dark Matter at the Ohio Center for Theoretical Science. The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, (January 2005).


  • " "Model-dependent and independent constraints on dark energy from weak lensing (cosmic shear) tomography". Seminar given at the Gravitational Lensing Workshop at the Institute for Advanced Studies, Princeton-IAS, NJ, (2004).


  • " "Future constraints on Dark Energy from complementary observations and weak lensing tomography (a critical discussion)" Seminar given at the Princeton University & Institute for Advanced Studies joint Gravitational Lensing Seminar. Princeton, NJ, (2004).


  • " “Inverse Problems In General Relativity and the Cosmic Acceleration.” Seminar given at the Gravity Group at Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, (2003).


  • " "Weak Lensing and CMB: Cosmological parameter forecasts including a running spectral index.". Invited talk given at the 13th Kingston Theoretical Astrophysics Meeting, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, (2003).


  • " "GRDB and applications to astrophysics and cosmology" Invited talk given at the Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics, Toronto, ON, (2002).


  • " "An inverse approach to Einstein Field Equations: fitting cosmological model,", Invited talk given at the joint astrophysics seminars of University of Montreal and McGill University, Montreal, QC, (2002).

Contributed talks and presentations:

  • " “Dark Energy versus Modified Gravity Models: Probing Cosmic Acceleration Beyond the Equation of State” Ishak, Mustapha; Upadhye, Amol; Spergel, David 2007 AAS/AAPT Joint Meeting, of the American Astronomical Society, Meeting 209, Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society. Seattle, WA, (January, 2007).


  • " “A First Detection of Large-scale Intrinsic Alignments and Implications for Cosmic Shear” Mandelbaum, Rachel; Hirata, C. M.; Ishak, M.; Seljak, U. 2007 AAS/AAPT Joint Meeting, American Astronomical Society Meeting 209, #77.27; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Seattle, WA, (January 2007).


  • " “A new procedure to distinguish between dark energy models and modified gravity models” Ishak, Mustapha; Upadhye, Amol; Spergel, David Presentation given at the April meeting of the American Physical Society, 22-26, 2006, abstract #I7.002, Dallas, (April 2006).


  • " “A new procedure to distinguish between dark energy models and modified gravity models” Mustapha Ishak, Amol Upadhye, David Spergel American Astronomical Society Meeting 207, #126.03; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 37, p.1371. Washington, DC: (January 2006)


  • " “Testing if cosmic acceleration is due to Dark Energy or if it is a symptom of the breakdown of General Relativity on cosmological scale” Mustapha Ishak, Amol Upadhye, David Spergel Canadian Astronomical Society meeting at the University of Montreal, Montreal, QC, (March 2005).


  • " "How and when are we going to constrain dark energy parameters to a satisfactory level of precision?" Talk given at the International Workshop on Particle Physics and the Early Universe (COSMO-04), organized by the Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics. Toronto, ON, (2004).


  • " "Dark Matter and a Possible Solution for the Acceleration Problems," Mustapha Ishak (2003). Poster presented at the 2003 Annual Meeting of the Canadian Astronomical Society, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, ON, (2003).

  • " "From Inverse Problems In General Relativity to a Possible Solution to the Cosmic Acceleration Problems" Mustapha Ishak and Kayll Lake Talk given at the Tenth Canadian Conference on General Relativity and Relativistic Astrophysics, University of Guelph, ON, (2003).


  • " "Perfect Fluid Cosmologies in Null (Observational) Coordinates," Mustapha Ishak Talk given at the Annual Congress of the Canadian Association of Physicists, University of Quebec, QC, (2002).


  • " "A fitting Approach to Cosmology Using Null (Observational) Coordinates," Mustapha Ishak and Kayll Lake. Poster presented at the 2001 Annual Meeting of the Canadian Astronomical Society (McMaster University, 2001, Hamilton, Ontario). Abstract published in the August 2001 issue of the Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada.


  • " “Exact Solutions with w-modes: Scattering of Gravitational Waves By Neutron Stars”, Mustapha Ishak, Luke Chamandy and Kayll Lake (2000). In the Proceedings of the 20th Texas Symposium on relativistic Astrophysics (American Institute of Physics. Editors J.C.Wheeler and H. Martel, 2000).


  • " "Inhomogeneous Cosmologies with Adiabatic Evolution," Roberto Sussman and Mustapha Ishak (2000). Developments in Mathematical and Experimental Physics, Volume A: Cosmology and Gravitation. Edited by Alfredo Macias, Francisco Uribe and Enrique Diaz. ISBN 0-306-47293-7. QC19.2 .M48 2001 530.15--dc21. Published by Kluwer Academic Publishers/Plenum Publishers, Dordrecht, The Netherlands, 2002, p.285.


  • " “GRlite and GRTensorJ: Graphical User Interfaces to the Computer Algebra System GRTensorI”I, Mustapha Ishak, Peter Musgrave, John Mourra, Jonathan Stern and Kayll Lake. Proceedings of the Eight Canadian Conference on General Relativity and Relativistic Astrophysics (American Institute of Physics. Editors C.P.Burgess and R.C.Myers, 1999). Paper also available at Los Alamos Archive Server as gr-qc/9911012

Workshops and Summer Schools attended:

  • "Conference and workshop on Dark Energy at McMaster University and the Perimeter Institute.” May 2007. " The conference was meant to bring together observers and theorists in astronomy, cosmology and particle physicists to highlight the observational evidence and theoretical ideas for Dark Energy, and to highlight the most promising future directions. To this end the meeting included broad review talks with which to start the discussion on each of the main areas of enquiry. The workshop focused on novel theoretical ideas on the nature of the dark sector and their prospects for observations. The workshop format was intended to be very informal, with few talks and ample time for discussions and interactions "


  • "Gravitational Lensing, Dark Energy and Dark Matter Workshop" at the Ohio Center for Theoretical Science, the Ohio State University, Columbus, 2005. "The goals of this workshop were to assess the current constraints on the nature of dark matter and dark energy from strong and weak gravitational lensing and gravitational microlensing, and to assess the prospects for stronger constraints with the ambitious surveys and instruments presently being planned or going into operation. Specific topics included: models of dark matter and dark energy, microlensing constraints on baryonic dark matter, mass profiles of galaxies and clusters, evidence for dark matter substructure, cosmic shear and galaxy-galaxy lensing as probes of dark matter and dark energy, systematic uncertainties in lensing measurements and their interpretation, wide-area imaging surveys from the ground and from space, lensing of high-redshift 21cm emission and CMB anisotropies, and the interplay of lensing and CMB constraint"


  • "Prospects in Theoretical Physics (Summer School)" at the Institute for Advanced Study, July 2003. An intensive summer school program exploring the compelling new problems and research opportunities at the interface of Astro/Particle Physics and Cosmology.


  • "1st Oxford-Princeton Workshop on Cosmology" at the Dept. of Astrophysical Sciences, Peyton Hall, Princeton University, March 2003. The focus of the workshop was to discuss new results from: CMB temperature and polarization experiments (MAP, ARCHEOPS, BOOMERANG2K2 etc.); galaxy surveys (SDSS, 2dF). As well as their cosmological implications: theoretical interpretations; new constraints on cosmological parameters; links with complementary results such as cluster abundances, Ly-alpha, weak and strong lensing.


  • "Cosmological Probes of Dark Energy". Workshop attended at the Center for Cosmological Physics at the University of Chicago, December 2001. The workshop was devoted to addressing the efficacy of various cosmological probes of dark energy, including SNeIa, weak and strong gravitational lensing, galaxy and cluster counts, CMB anisotropy, and the Alcock-Paczynski test. The workshop brought together experts to study and discuss the important details and systematics associated with these cosmological probes as well as new ideas or strategies.

Current and previous collaborations, software, and projects:

Gravitational Lens: Galaxy Cluster 0024+1654

Gravitational Lens: Galaxy Cluster 0024+1654
W. N. Colley (Princeton University), E. Turner (Princeton University),
J. A. Tyson (AT&T Bell Labs), and NASA


Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe

From the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP):
First Year Results.
(WMAP is a NASA Explorer Mission.):

  • Updated: September 24, 2007