Amir Abdulgadir
MIT Department: Physics
Faculty Mentor: Prof. Lina Necib
Research Supervisor: Nathaniel Starkman, Zeineb Mezghanni
Undergraduate Institution: Howard University
Website:
Biography
Amir Abdulgadir is a Karsh STEM Scholar at Howard University studying astrophysics.His passion for research started one night in 2019 while staring up at the stars, where a floodof questions pushed him to start learning everything he could about the universe. He got hisfirst taste of research in a stable isotope lab at Portland State University, working with CO2analyzers and exploring how science can influence real-world change. He’s now studyingone-on-one with Dr. Lindesay, founder of the Computational Physics Lab, where he’s learninggeneral relativity, causality, and quantum phenomena. Amir’s research interests includeaccretion disks, stellar remnants, and the mechanics behind relativistic jets. Inspired by hisEthiopian heritage and his mom’s words to “aim high,” he’s focused on asking better questions,following his curiosity, and contributing meaningful work to the scientific community.
Abstract
Understanding Dark Matter Using Stellar Streams
Amir Abdulgadir1, Nathaniel Starkman2, Zeineb Mezghanni2, and Lina Necib2
1Department of Physics and Astronomy, Howard University
2Department of Physics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
The nature and properties of dark matter (DM) remain among the most fundamental unanswered questions in astrophysics. This project focuses on using stellar streams, faint, elongated structures formed when smaller satellite systems are tidally disrupted by the gravitational forces of a larger host galaxy, to map the invisible gravitational potential shaped by dark matter. While the Milky Way has been studied before in depth, few projects connect high-resolution extragalactic observational data to direct constraints on dark matter halo properties. This research aims to fill that gap using a targeted and systematic approach. After sorting deep-space images from the European Space Agency’s Euclid mission and identifying galaxies that exhibit stellar streams, a galaxy modeling tool is used that isolates the faint stream by subtracting the dominant light of the host galaxy. Morphological features such as the stream’s trajectory, width, and surface brightness profile are then extracted and analyzed. From this, constraints can be placed on the mass and shape of the host galaxy’s total mass distribution. Building from my work modeling the luminous galaxy, we can subtract the baryons from the total to find the mass and shape of the dark matter distribution itself.
