Astronomy: Young Tunisian Physicist Lina Nessib, “Rising Star” in America

The Astronomical Society of America (USA) calls her a “Rising Star” in astronomy.

The 33-year-old Tunisian physicist Lina Nessib is the winner of the “Valley Prize 2023” in Physics presented by the American Physical Society (APS).

The prize recognizes research conducted by physicists early in their careers that may have a significant impact on the field.

An article was dedicated to her in the world’s best-selling astronomy magazine, titled “Rising Star in Astronomy: Lina Nessib”.

His research on dark matter (black matter) is drawing attention in physics and astronomy circles because he uses a new tool to track dark matter, or machine learning, in addition to the tools that physicists often use.

Dark matter is defined by the famous science journal “Futura Sciences” as a mysterious component of matter that is composed of elementary particles, but not ordinary matter, such as protons, neutrons and electrons. distributed throughout the visible universe.

Without electric charge and interacting only very weakly with ordinary matter, it is distinguished by its gravitational attraction.

Lina Nessib, a young Tunisian assistant professor of physics at MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), the world’s 3rd best university according to Shanghai rankings, presents herself as an astrophysicist. “As a theoretical astrophysicist, I work on using galactic dynamics to understand the properties of dark matter.”

“I have a PhD in particle physics, but during my PhD, I slowly switched to astrophysics,” he explains.

“I thought these two communities should talk to each other a little more. We’re all trying to answer the same question: What is dark matter?”

Lina Nessib, a native of Kairouan, received her bachelor’s degree in Tunisia, before deciding to pursue her higher education in the United States (2008), earning her bachelor’s degree at Boston University.

He then joined MIT to start his research project. In 2020, Lina Nessib and her colleagues discovered a massive stellar stream, a ribbon of stars left behind by a torn and stretched galaxy, swirling around the outskirts of the Milky Way.

Dark matter, his primary area of ​​interest, pulls these currents and leaves fingerprints, proof of their existence.

The young Tunisian researcher said the stream, dubbed “Nyx” after the Greek goddess of the night, could be the remnants of a dwarf galaxy that collided with the much larger Milky Way a few years ago. billions of years ago.

To study the flux, he and his team combined particle physics with cosmological simulations, data from star catalogs and machine learning, a revolutionary combination of tools. They published their results in “Nature Astronomy.”