Muhammad Rabie Omar

Profile

M.R. Omar is a young researcher specializing in computational physics with a focus on particle and nuclear physics at the School of Physics, Universiti Sains Malaysia. Currently, he is a visiting scientist at RIKEN, Japan's premier national research institute, where he collaborates with the Nuclear Structure Research Group at the RIKEN Nishina Center for Accelerator-Based Science.

His research interests include the following areas:

1. Muon Physics: Muon spin depolarization in superconductors.

Muon is a subatomic particle that has an average lifetime of about 2.2μs. It's spin behaves differently in the different materials, which makes it useful for the study of magnetic behavior of superconductors. Implanting muons in a superconductors helps to understand its magnetic properties, including SC critical temperatures, formation of magnetic vortices and more. A machine that helps to implant muons is known as muon spin rotation/relaxation spectrometer (μSR). His active collaborations with key Professors from RIKEN Nishina Center of Particle and Accelerator-based Study, JAPAN, allows the retrieval of experimental data, thus, allowing himself and his team to focus on the fundamental study and also the Monte Carlo simulation of the interaction between muon spin angular momentum with nuclear dipole moments. Dr Omar also focuses on assessing the feasibility of using Machine Learning methods to revamps the current  μSR asymmetry vs. time spectra analysis.

Some knowledge used in this research theme includes the following:

• Quantum Mechanics: Operators, basic knowledge about Lie algebra, spin precession, Zeeman effect
• Python programming, Machine Learning methods (including neural networks)
• Monte Carlo method: We predicts positron emissions and beta-decay of muons using the computed final muon spin angular momentum.

 2. Nuclear Physics: Study of Radio-active transformations and reactor physics related topics

Dr. Omar also focuses on the safety protection for various nuclear technologies including nuclear fuel storage, nuclear reactors, etc. To date, his research focuses on (1) the core of the Monte Carlo method for neutron transport; and, (2) nuclear transmutation analysis and burnup calculations. Some tools used in this research theme includes the following:

• Monte Carlo Neutron Transport codes: OpenMC and MCNP.
• C++ programming
• Parallel computing libraries.

Previously I have been focusing on fission source convergence issues because false source convergence leads to erroneous criticality calculation. Such an erroneous calculation lead to nuclear design errors (leads to flaws in reactor design, nuclear fuel design, nuclear shielding design etc.). For more info on nuclear criticality safety: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_criticality_safety. I am also welcoming new novel ideas from you. Please share so that we can work together.

Omar has an MSc in Physics and Technology of Nuclear Reactors from the University of Birmingham, England; and a PhD in Computational Physics from the Universiti Sains Malaysia.