Physics thesis and dissertation collection
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Recent Submissions
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Statistical field theories of living matter
(The University of Edinburgh, 2024-10-10)The materials we find in living systems are characterized by complexity, softness, and activity. They are made up of many coupled heterogeneous components that interact to give rise to nonlinear dynamics, complex structures, ... -
Purely elastic turbulence in channel flows of dilute polymer solutions
(The University of Edinburgh, 2024-10-02)Solutions of long, flexible polymer molecules are complex fluids that simultaneously exhibit fluid-like and solid-like behaviour. When subjected to an external flow, dilute polymer solutions exhibit elastic turbulence — ... -
Radiation-hydrodynamics on massively parallel architectures
(The University of Edinburgh, 2024-09-18)This thesis presents a significant advancement in the capabilities of the radiative transfer package Taranis by coupling it to the widely used GIZMO hydrodynamics code. Together these two packages allow for fully coupled ... -
Background simulations and data analysis in LUX and LZ dark matter detectors
(The University of Edinburgh, 2022-07-04)Dark matter, an unknown gravitational source on galactic scales invisible in the electromagnetic spectrum, makes up ~25% of universe's total mass-energy density. Popular theories posit galactic halos of Weakly Interacting ... -
Investigation of Pickering emulsion systems to overcome compositional ripening in reduced-calorie snack-food water-in-oil systems
(The University of Edinburgh, 2024-07-18)As regulations and consumer desire for healthier dietary options increases, there is a growing interest in producing foods with reduced calorie content. One approach is to replace the high-calorie components with water ... -
Investigating the population of growing supermassive black holes using X-rays surveys combined with multi-wavelength information
(The University of Edinburgh, 2024-07-17)In this Thesis I investigate the population of Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN), which trace the growth of supermassive black holes, using a new X-ray survey combined with multi-wavelength imaging and spectroscopy. I use my ... -
X-ray free-electron laser heating and structural studies in the diamond anvil cell
(The University of Edinburgh, 2024-07-10)X-ray free-electron lasers (XFELs) constitute the world’s brightest light sources, capable of producing focused, short wavelength, coherent X-ray pulses for atomic scale investigation of matter under extreme conditions. ... -
Carbonaceous chondrites and kerogens as organic carbon sources for life on present-day Earth, early Earth and other planets
(The University of Edinburgh, 2024-07-03)Carbon is an essential element for life and is ubiquitous in the Universe. Carbon-containing molecules vary from small to macromolecular molecules. Many of the carbon-containing molecules present in the interstellar ... -
Hidden growth of black holes across cosmic time
(The University of Edinburgh, 2024-06-27)It is now universally accepted that galaxies grow their central supermassive black holes through active phases of accretion that produces an Active Galactic Nucleus (AGN). Using multiwavelength surveys, the demographics ... -
Self-organised flow structures in confined active nematics
(The University of Edinburgh, 2024-06-24)Active matter is a class of materials, including many biological and biologically inspired systems, driven far from thermodynamic equilibrium by energy-injection at the particle level. It encompasses matter across many ... -
Understanding the properties of diffuse gas in cosmology: from galaxies to large-scale structures
(The University of Edinburgh, 2024-07-21)An important field of study in observational astronomy is to understand the baryonic activities in the Universe. A key prediction derived from the Big Bang nucleosynthesis (BBN) is that baryonic matter accounts for around ... -
Search for displaced dark photons in vector boson fusion Higgs events with the ATLAS detector
(The University of Edinburgh, 2024-06-20)A range of promising models predicting new physics beyond the Standard Model have been proposed to explain the nature of Dark Matter through the introduction of a new Dark Sector. In these models, the Dark Sector interacts ... -
Topological and activity-induced constraints in nematic liquid crystals
(The University of Edinburgh, 2024-06-13)Active matter encompasses a broad class of out-of-equilibrium materials with internally-driven components. A trademark feature of these materials is that energy injections at microscopic scales develop into complex pattern ... -
Tackling the cosmological constant problem with scalar-tensor dark energy
(The University of Edinburgh, 2024-06-07)The Universe is expanding, and its expansion is accelerating according to observations. The simplest explanation for this is Einstein’s Cosmological Constant, which provides a negative pressure against gravitational ... -
Towards a high-precision description of resonances through lattice simulations
(The University of Edinburgh, 2024-06-07)Resonances play a significant role in the phenomenology of the Standard Model. For example, many hadronic resonances are found in flavour-physics processes, which can be central to New Physics searches. The realistic ... -
Lattice simulations of SU(N) Scalar+Gauge theories for holographic cosmology
(The University of Edinburgh, 2024-06-05)In the work by Skenderis and McFadden, the power spectrum of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) in a 4d gravitational theory is mapped to the two-point function of the Energy-Momentum Tensor (EMT) of a 3d QFT with ... -
Measurement, interpretation and potential exploitation of pH changes during bacterial growth
(The University of Edinburgh, 2024-06-04)Most microbes alter the pH of their environment when they grow, and the nature of this change depends on the organism and growth conditions. pH changes are exploited for detection of bacterial contamination in various ... -
Activity of comets: Insights from ground-based broadband observations
(The University of Edinburgh, 2024-05-24)Comets are the primitive building blocks of the Solar System. In order to understand the extent of the pristine nature of comets, we must understand the mechanisms that affect their surfaces and comae -- their activity. ... -
Quantum nuclear motion in density functional theory
(The University of Edinburgh, 2024-05-14)Ab-initio methods such as density functional theory (DFT) can accurately solve the many-body interactions of the electrons of up to hundreds of atoms. This has allowed for the prediction of material properties over a wide ... -
Astrobiological potential of putative aqueous microenvironments on Mars
(The University of Edinburgh, 2024-07-03)Water is a fundamental requirement for life as we know it. Therefore, one approach to the search for extraterrestrial life is to look for environments where liquid water exists or has existed. This approach has led us ...