Abbas Askar

Abbas Askar is a postdocotral fellow at the Nicolaus Copernicus Astronomical Center in Warsaw.
Broadly, his research is centered on black holes, formation of compact object binaries, and dynamical evolution of dense stellar systems like globular clusters.

He is the principal investigator of the POLONEZ BIS 1 project (2023-2025) on "Growing Black Holes in Star Clusters" (BHGrowth). This project is co-funded by the Polish National Science Centre (NCN) and the European Union Framework Programme for Research and Innovation Horizon 2020 under a Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant. This project focuses on investigating the different pathways by which black holes can grow in dense star clusters using state-of-the-art computer simulations.

Abbas completed his PhD in 2018 from CAMK, Warsaw where he worked with Prof. Mirek Giersz in the MOCCA team. His research focused on understanding the dynamical evolution of stellar clusters and on investigating populations of compact objects and exotic binary systems using Monte Carlo and N-body simulation codes. During his PhD, he also led the development of the COCOA code that can create and analyze mock photometric observations of simulated star cluster models.

Following the completion of his PhD degree in 2018, Abbas joined Lund University in Sweden on a postdoctoral fellowship awarded by the Carl Trygger Foundation for Scientific Research. From 2020 - 2023, he was employed a a post-doctoral researcher at Lund Observatory. He independently supervised two masters and two bachelor student projects at Lund Univeristy and was also involved in teaching master and PhD level courses in astronomy and astrophysics. He is also an associate member of the LISA (Laser Interferometer Space Antenna) consortium and an active member of its Astrophysics Working Group.

Main Research Interests:
• Star Clusters and Stellar Dynamics
• Black Hole Formation and Growth in Star Clusters
• Dynamical Formation of Gravitational Wave Sources and High-energy Electromagnetic Transients
• Formation and Growth of Supermassive Black Holes and Nuclear Star Clusters
• Computational Astrophysics