S M Rafee Adnan

S M Rafee Adnan

Graduate Student at Dept. of Physics & Astronomy

University of Louisville

About Me

Hi, I am S M Rafee Adnan, currently a graduate student at the University of Louisville, Department of Physics & Astronomy. My research focuses are mainly in two areas: Open Star Clusters in Milky Way and galaxy-scale Strong Lensing systems. Working under the guidance of Prof. Benne Holwerda, I am utilizing Gaia data to explore the mysteries of our Milky Way. Additionally, I am collaborating with Dr. Anowar J. Shajib, using HST imaging data to model galaxy-scale strong lensing phenomena and analyze the environment and internal structure of massive elliptical galaxies. I am also a member of LSST Strong Lensing science collaboration.

Beside doing science, I’m really interested in art and music.

Download my resumé .

Interests
  • Galactic Astronomy
  • Observational Cosmology
  • Gravitational Lensing
  • Astrostatistics
Education

  • MSc in Physics & Astronomy, 2023-Current

    University of Louisville

  • BSc in Physics, 2021

    Shahjalal University of Science and Technology (SUST)

Research Publications

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All Strong Lensing MZR
Investigating the relation between environment and internal structure of massive elliptical galaxies using strong lensing
We performed lens modeling for them using lenstronomy and constrained the mass and light distributions of the deflector galaxies using a sample of 15 strong lensing systems. We adopt the local galaxy density as a metric for the environment and test our results against several alternative definitions of it. This result supports using centroid offsets as a probe of dark matter theories since the environment’s impact on it can be treated as negligible. First & Corresponding Author, Submitted to Astronomy & Astrophysics (A&A).
Investigating the relation between environment and internal structure of massive elliptical galaxies using strong lensing
Exploring the Mass-Metallicity Relation in Open Clusters inside the Milky Way
Open clusters provide a controlled setting to investigate the interplay between mass and metallicity on a more localized level. However, the specific analysis of this relation within individual open clusters has been sparsely investigated, despite its significance. In this study, we aim to fill this research gap by conducting a comprehensive analysis of 75-star clusters, with the objective of examining the trends and probing the underlying mechanisms governing their mass-metallicity relationship. Poster presented at Metal Production and Distribution in a Hierarchical Universe – II (metals2023), ESO Santiago, Chile, November 13-17, 2023 https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10117210
Exploring the Mass-Metallicity Relation in Open Clusters inside the Milky Way

Other Projects

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All Outreach GitHub pkgs
Lunar VR
This is a virtual reality application that lets the user to explore and learn about the moon. This project was awarded as the Global Winner in Best use of data category in NASA Space Apps Challenge 2018. Ever since then it became an integral part of outreach programs of various scientific organizations in Bangladesh. Main Features of Lunar VR- 1. Exploring the landing site of Apollo 11, 2. Orbiting over the moon with LRO satellite, 3. Observing Eclipse from the lunar surface and last but not least informative description of different points of interests by virtual exploration assistant “Luna”.
Lunar VR
AstroPixel
AstroPixel was made with the goal of making pixel art out of real astronomical data! This program will query a region of the sky given a coordinate and radius. Then, the user can plot the field as pixel art! AstroPixel uses the 2MASS catalog by default, but you can use other catalogs available on Vizier. Savannah Gramze and I teamed up in Code/Astro 2024 to make this awesome open source python package. You can add it to your python library using pip install astropixel. Give it a try!
AstroPixel

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