Department of Physics

nsm > physics > faculty > mustapha ishak-boushaki

Mustapha Ishak-Boushaki, Ph.D., Associate Professor

Education

B.A.Sc. in Computer Sciences at University of Quebec at 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 my Curriculum Vitae (Feb. 2013) click here.
For a picture of the new addition to the ishak's family: Ryan click here.
For a picture gallery of my little family click here.
For a picture of my students and research group click here.

Biosketch:

I completed my Ph.D. (December 2002) in Cosmology and General Relativity with Prof. Kayll Lake at the Physics Department at Queen's University at Kingston in Canada. My graduate work included investigations in inhomogeneous cosmological models; an inverse approach to Einstein's equations; oscillation modes in compact astrophysical objects; and matching spacetimes using junction conditions.

Then, I joined the Physics Department at Princeton University as a postdoctoral fellow where I worked on projects in cosmology, cosmic acceleration and gravitational lensing with Prof. Steinhardt, Prof. Seljak and 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 on the same topics above. 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).

On August 2005, I started an assistant professor position at the Department of Physics at the University of Texas at Dallas (UT Dallas). I discovered that a real thirst for Cosmology and Astrophysics exists within the students at UT Dallas and also the general public in the Dallas Metroplex Area so I launched, with the help of colleagues, a number of initiatives and activities in response to that. I formed the new Cosmology, Relativity, and Astrophysics Group with the kind encouragments of Prof. Rindler and other colleagues here at UT Dallas.

My recent research projects and interests at UTDallas are in Modern Cosmology, General Relativity, and at their  intersection (see next section).  I am involved in both theoretical, numerical, 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 students. The courses I taught at UTD include PHYS2325 Mechanics, PHYS3312 Classical Mechanics, PHYS5395 Cosmology and PHYS5303 Math Methods for Physics III. I received the 2007 Outstanding Teaching Award from the School of Natural Sciences and Mathematics at UTD .

Our group is now funded by NASA, DOE, and NSF, as well as the private sector.

Doctoral Genealogy:

Kayll W. Lake - Robert C. Roeder - George C. McVittie - Arthur S. Eddington
(Credit for reconstructing this genealogy goes to Prof. Kayll Lake)

 

Professional recognitions and honors

Journal Paper voted by the Editorial Board of Classical and Quantum Gravity Journal as one of the journal's highlights of 2002. Article title: Interactive Geometric Database, Including Exact Solutions of Einstein's Field Equations, Mustapha Ishak and Kayll Lake, Classical and Quantum Gravity 19, 505 (2002).

2002-2004 Postdoctoral Fellowship for Excellence in Research and Leadership from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC)

Journal paper selected on June 2008 by Gerardus 't Hooft (Nobel Laureate in Physics 1999) on the Chief Editor List of the Foundation of Physics Journal. Article title: Remarks on the formulation of the cosmological constant/dark energy questions. Mustapha Ishak. Foundation of ihysics Journal, 37:1470-1498,2007.

2007 Award for Outstanding Teacher of the Year from the School of Natural Sciences and Mathematics. University of Texas at Dallas

Research Interests

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

• The origin/cause of the acceleration of the expansion of the Universe: Cosmological Constant, Dark Energy, Extensions to General Relativity.
• Testing Dark Energy versus Modified Gravity at Cosmological Scales of Distance
• Gravitational Lensing and applications to cosmology
• Constraining cosmological parameters and cosmological models using probes such as gravitational lensing, the cosmic microwave background (CMB), and supernova searches.
• Inhomogeneous Cosmological Models
• Selected topics in General Relativity and Cosmological Exact Solutions to Einstein's Equations
• Projects at the intersection of modern cosmology and General Relativity
• Junction conditions for matching spacetimes and constructing wormholes and thin-shells
• Computer Algebra (symbolic computing) and application to cosmology and general relativity

My current and previous students include:

Graduated Ph.D. Students:
James Richardson (graduated in 2008). Working in the corporate sector.
Jacob Moldenhaeur (graduated in 2010). Assistant Professor at Francis Marion University in SC.
Anthony Nwankwo (graduated in 2011). Working in the corporate sector.

Current graduate students:
Jason Dossett (Ph.D. graduation expected in May 2013)
Austin Peel (Ph.D. graduation expected in 2015)
Michael Troxel (Ph.D. graduation expected in 2014)
Tharake Wijenayake (Ph.D. graduation year TBD)

Other students involved with the group
Chris Allison
Jeffrey Scott
Brian Troup

Undergraduate student supervision:
Katherine Morgan (undergraduate Thesis/research, 2006)
Lee Isaac Trawick, (undergraduate Thesis/research, 2006)
Wendy Gartenberg, (undergraduate Thesis/research, 2007)
John Wilson (undergraduate Thesis/research, 2007)
Jason Dossett, (undergraduate Thesis/research, 2007 and 2008)
Tan Lee, (undergraduate Thesis/research, 2008)
Austin Peel (undergraduate Thesis/research, 2007)
John Thompson (Undergraduate Thesis/Research, 2008)
Thomas Griffins (Undergraduate Research Project, 2012)
Nathan Newton (Undergraduate Research Project, 2012)

High-school students summer internships:
Tim Carlton summer 2006
Ray Whitside, summer 2007
Sid Mittal, summer 2008
Parker Maginley, summer 2008
Brandyn Lee, summer 2009
Scott Meesse, summer 2009
Genway Huang, summer 2010
Evan Remmele, summer 2011

Grants

PI, National Science Foundation, 2011-2014 (Research Project in Astrophysics and Gravitational Lensing)
PI, Department Of Energy, 2010-2013 (Research Project in Cosmology and Dark Energy)
PI, NASA Astrophysics Theory Program, 2009-2012 (Research Project in Cosmology and Cosmic Acceleration)
PI, Texas Space Grant Consortium, to start in 2008 (Research Project in Astrophysics and Cosmic Acceleration)
PI, From Corporate Sector Frito-Lay, 2008 (Research Project I in Gravity & statistics)
PI, From Corporate Sector Frito-Lay, 2009 (Research Project II in Gravity & statistics)
PI, Hoblitzelle foundation, 2006 (Grant to build a Computer Cluster)

Cosmology, Relativity and Astrophysics Group

Cosmology student group
From right to left: Prof. Mustapha Ishak-Boushaki, Michael Troxel, Jacob Moldenhauer, John Thompson, Jason Dossett, Anthony Nwankwo, Lee Caps, and Prof. Wolgang Rindler (Chris Allison and Austin Peel are not shown on picture).

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

Journal Papers (incomplete list):

1. " The growth of structure in the Szekeres inhomogeneous cosmological models and the matter-dominated era. ", Mustapha Ishak, Austin Peel. Published in Physical Review D 85 (2012) 083502. Paper available at http://arxiv.org/abs/1104.2590.
   
   
2. " Self-Calibration Technique for 3-point Intrinsic Alignment Correlations in Weak Lensing Surveys. ", M. A. Troxel, Mustapha Ishak, Published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomy Society 419 (2012) 1804. Paper available at http://arxiv.org/abs/1109.4896.
   
   
3. " Large-scale growth evolution in the Szekeres inhomogeneous cosmological models with comparison to growth data. ", Austin Peel, Mustapha Ishak, M. A. Troxel. Published in Physical Review D 86 (2012) 123508. Paper available at http://arxiv.org/abs/1212.2298.
   
   
4. " Self-calibrating the gravitational shear-intrinsic ellipticity-intrinsic ellipticity (GII) cross-correlation. ", 2. M. A. Troxel, Mustapha Ishak, Published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomy Society 427 (2012) 442. Paper available at http://arxiv.org/abs/1205.1547.
   
   
5. " Spatial curvature and cosmological tests of general relativity. ", Jason Dossett, Mustapha Ishak. Published in Physical Review D 86 (2012) 103008. Paper available at http://arxiv.org/abs/1205.2422.
   
   
6. " Self-Calibration for 3-point Intrinsic Alignment Auto-Correlations in Weak Lensing Surveys. ", 2. M. A. Troxel, Mustapha Ishak, Published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomy Society 423 (2012) 1663. Paper available at http://arxiv.org/abs/1203.2138.
   
   
7. " Testing General Relativity at Cosmological Scales: Implementation and Parameter ", 7. Jason Dossett, Mustapha Ishak, Jacob Moldenhauer. Published in Physical Review D 84, 123001 (2011). Paper available at http://arxiv.org/abs/1109.4583.
   
   
8. " Figures of merit and constraints from testing General Relativity using the latest cosmological data sets including refined COSMOS 3D weak lensing ", Jason Dossett, Jacob Moldenhauer, Mustapha Ishak. Published in Physical Review D 84, 023012 (2011). Paper available at astro-ph:arXiv:1006.0014.
   
   
9. " The Relevance of the Cosmological Constant for Lensing ", Mustapha Ishak, Wolfgang Rindler, Jason Dossett. Invited Review Article Published in General Relativity and Gravitation 42: 2247-2268 (2010). Paper available at astro-ph:arXiv:1006.0014.
   
   
10. " Luminosity distance and redshift in the Szekeres inhomogeneous cosmological models ", Anthony Nwankwo, Mustapha Ishak, John Thompson. Published in JCAP JCAP (2011). Paper available at astro-ph:arXiv:1006.0014.
    
    
11. " Constraints on growth index parameters from current and future observations ", Jason Dossett, Mustapha Ishak, Jacob Moldenhauer, Yungui Gong, Anzhong Wang. Published in JCAP 1004:022 (2010). Paper available at astro-ph:arXiv:1004.3086.
    
    
12. " Supernova, baryon acoustic oscillations, and CMB surface distance constraints on f(G) higher order gravity models ", Jacob Moldenhauer, Mustapha Ishak, John Thompson, Damien A. Easson. Published in Physical Review D 81, 063514 (2010). Paper available at astro-ph:arXiv:1004.2459.
    
    
13. " A minimal set of invariants as a systematic approach to higher order gravity models II: Physical and Cosmological Constraints" Jacob Moldenhauer, Mustapha Ishak.. Published in Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics 0912: 020 (2009). Paper available at astro-ph:arXiv:0912.5332.
    
    
14. " Growth factor parametrization in curved space", Yungui Gong, Mustapha Ishak, Anzhong Wang Published in Physical Review D 80, 023002 (2009). Paper available at astro-ph:arXiv:0903.0001.
    
    
15. " A minimal set of invariants as a systematic approach to higher order gravity models" Mustapha Ishak, Jacob Moldenhauer. Published in Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics 0901: 024 (2009). Paper available at astro-ph:arXiv:0808.0951.
    
    
16. " More on Lensing by a Cosmological Constant", Mustapha Ishak, Wolfgang Rindler, Jason Dossett, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society Journal, at press February 2010. astro-ph:arXiv:0810.4956.
    
    
17. " Dark Energy or Apparent Acceleration Due to a Relativistic Cosmological Model More Complex than FLRW?" Mustapha Ishak, James Richardson, Delilah Whittington, David Garred. Published in Physical Review D. 78, 123531, (2008). Paper available at astro-ph:0708.2943.
    
    
18. " Light Deflection, Lensing, and Time Delays from Gravitational Potentials and Fermat's Principle in the Presence of a Cosmological Constant" Mustapha Ishak. Published in Physical Review D. 78, 103006, (2008). Paper available at astro-ph:0708.2943.
    
    
19. " A new independent limit on the cosmological constant/dark energy from the relativistic bending of light by Galaxies and clusters of Galaxies" Mustapha Ishak, Wolfgang Rindler, Jason Dossett, Jacob. Moldenhauer, Chris Allison. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society Journal, Volume?388, Issue?3, p1279 (2008) astro-ph:arXiv:0710.4726.
    
    
20. " Inverse approach to Einstein's equations for fluids with vanishing anisotropic stress tensor. " James Richardson, Mustapha Ishak. Physical Review D. 77 (2008) 044005. Paper available at gr-qc:0707.135.
    
    
21. " 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 .
    
    
22. " 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.
    
    
23. " 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 volume 381, 1197-1218 (2007). Paper available at astro-ph/0701671 .
    
    
24. "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.
    
    
25. "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 .
    
    
26. "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 .
    
    
27. "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.
    
    
28. "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 .
    
    
29. "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 .
    
    
30. "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 .
    
    
31. "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 .
    
    
32. "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 .
    
    
33. "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.
    
    
34. "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.
    
    
35. "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.
    
    
36. "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.
    
    

Current and previous collaborations, software, and projects:

• The Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS).
  
• Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope Legacy Survey (CFHTLS).
  
• The Terrestrial Planet Finder (TPF-C). Auxiliary Science: Dark Energy and Cosmology (using very high redshift supernovae)
  
• The Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT).
  
• GRTensorJ software. A graphical user interface to GRTensorII, the foremost computer syStem for doing tensor and algebraic calculations in General Relativity, String Theory and Cosmology.
  
• http://grdb.org software. (GRDB): An online interactive geometric database that includes exact solutions of Einstein's Field Equations. GRDB integrates the virtual calculator GRTensorJ to do extremely complicated tensor, tetrad, basis calculations online. We used Java, C, Maple and other web-based technologies.
  
• Developments for The millennium Tensor Project, collaboration, a world class project of interest to researchers in General Relativity, String Theory, Cosmology and related areas.

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

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

• Updated: February 13, 2013