I explore how matter behaves at the edges of the universe's most extreme environments. My research centers on the physics of mass transfer and accretion within compact interacting binaries, specifically investigating the properties and evolution of cataclysmic variables and stellar remnants. Grounded in time-domain astrophysics and spectroscopic surveys, I study multi-messenger accretion physics and time-domain variability, comparing observations from space-based timing missions (such as Kepler and TESS) to test if accretion physics is scale-invariant—from young, forming stars to supermassive black holes. Furthermore, my work models gravitational wave emission from Galactic binaries, establishing their properties for future LISA observations. I also apply machine learning, deep learning, and pattern recognition to classify and interpret massive astronomical datasets.
We present an "unreview" of the field of accreting white dwarfs, identifying critical open questions and unresolved physics—such as angular momentum transport, disk winds, and magnetic boundary dynamics—to advance accretion theory across all stellar and galactic mass scales.
We report the discovery of a persistent Hα bow shock nebular structure around the magnetic, short-period cataclysmic variable 1RXS J052832.5+283824 (RXJ0528+2838), suggesting a powerful, previously unrecognised energy loss mechanism that could govern magnetic binary evolution.
We estimate the gravitational wave signals from the Galactic population of cataclysmic variables (CVs) and evaluate their significance for the LISA mission, finding that key systems will be individually resolvable and contribute substantially to the Galactic binary background.
We present a sub-arcsec cross-match of Gaia DR3 against IGAPS and UKIDSS surveys. The resulting XGAPS catalog provides precise multi-band photometry for over 33 million sources, trained via Random Forests for astrometric cleaning.
We propose a model where the magnetic confinement of accretion streams onto accreting magnetic white dwarfs triggers localized thermonuclear runaways, explaining the rapid optical bursts known as micronovae.
We report optical bursts from TV Columbae, EI Ursae Majoris, and ASASSN-19bh. These events, dubbed micronovae, release approximately one-millionth of the energy of classical novae, triggered by thermonuclear runaways in magnetically confined columns.
We report TESS optical light curves showing rapid transitions in TW Pictoris, where the system drops in luminosity by factors up to 3.5 in under 30 minutes, analogous to transitions observed in transitional millisecond pulsars.
Archival optical observations of MV Lyrae display quasi-periodic bursts every 2 hours, revealing an unstable magnetically gated accretion mode and providing a novel way of measuring low magnetic fields (1e4 - 1e5 Gauss) in white dwarfs.
We study the K2 light curve of a young M-type pre-main-sequence star displaying irregular dimmings up to 65%, proposing causes such as warped inner-disk edges or transiting cometary-like objects in tilted orbits.
We show that accreting white dwarfs and young stellar objects display the same linear rms-flux correlation and obey the same quantitative scaling relation as stellar-mass and supermassive black holes, establishing the size of the accretor as the primary scaling parameter.
Simultaneous Kepler optical and MAXI X-ray timing shows bimodality and discrete correlation indicating a 12.5-hour optical lag. Cepstrum analysis confirms echoes consistent with thermal re-processing in the disk.
We study high-order Fourier bispectra of MV Lyr, V1504 Cyg, and Cyg X-1. We detect non-zero, positive biphases at high frequencies, indicating time-irreversibility consistent with fluctuating accretion disk models.
We apply the fluctuating accretion disk model to Kepler high-frequency timing of MV Lyrae, deducing a geometrically thick inner flow extending to the white dwarf, with optical variability powered by X-ray reprocessing.