Biography

I am interested in the magnetic field properties of protostellar cores, which are newly formed stars that have collapsed onto a central point mass. In particular, my work involves mathematically describing the distortion of the magnetic field lines which are sculpted by the rapid rotation of the protostellar disk and the generation of outflows. The latter are enormous structures, extending up to thousands of astronomical units and their purpose is to expel the excess angular momentum from the protostellar disk. Because of observational limitations, I rely on tools from mathematical physics and magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) simulations to build a theoretical model for the toroidal magnetic field component. Being able to model the magnetic field of stars that are so far out of reach is an important step to building a proper understanding on how stars form.

Education

• PhD in Applied Mathematics (Astrophysics specialization) ; Western University, Canada
• MSc in Mathematical Finance ; McMaster University, Canada
• BSc in Mathematics & Statistics; McMaster University, Canada

Research Interests

• Star formation physics
• Magnetohydrodynamics
• Black hole thermodynamics
• Mathematical physics

Selected Publications

Basu, S., Sharkawi, M., & Machida, M. N. (2024). Outflows Driven from a Magnetic Pseudodisk. arXiv preprint arXiv:2401.04260.

Sharkawi, M. (2023). The Magnetic Field of Protostar-Disk-Outflow Systems.

Bino, G., Basu, S., Machida, M. N., Tritsis, A., Sharkawi, M., Kadam, K., & Das, I. (2022). Synthetic Polarization Maps of an Outflow Zone from Magnetohydrodynamic Simulations. The Astrophysical Journal, 936(1), 29.

Bino, G., Basu, S., Sharkawi, M., & Das, I. (2022). Hourglass magnetic field from a survey of current density profiles. New Astronomy, 90, 101667.

 

Teaching Courses

Calculus I 0107101

Calculus II 0107104

Discrete Structures 0107200

Linear Algebra 0107102

Probability & Statistics 0107103