Physics thesis and dissertation collection
This material is presented to ensure timely dissemination of scholarly and technical work. Copyright and all rights therein are retained by authors or by other copyright holders. All persons copying this information are expected to adhere to the terms and constraints invoked by each author's copyright. In most cases, these works may not be reposted without the explicit permission of the copyright holder.
Recent Submissions
-
Perovskites under extreme conditions: pushing the limits of neutron diffraction
(The University of Edinburgh, 2020-06-25)The application of hydrostatic pressure and temperature are effective methods for manipulating and correlating crystal structures and physical properties of materials. Volume, interatomic distances, chemical bonds, local ... -
Ammonia water mixtures at extreme pressures and temperatures
(The University of Edinburgh, 2020-06-25)The ice giants Uranus and Neptune, and exoplanets like them, contain large amounts of water, ammonia, and methane ices, as well as hydrogen in various forms. Yet it is unknown how these compounds organize themselves under ... -
Observation of new Ξ꜀⁰ states decaying to Λ꜀⁺K⁻, and development of the TORCH time-of-flight detector
(The University of Edinburgh, 2020-06-25)Using a data sample of proton-proton collisions at center-of-mass energy of 13 TeV corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 5.6 fb-1 collected by the LHCb experiment, the Λc+K- mass spectrum is studied. Three new, ... -
Development of a modulation-based magneto-optic Kerr effect (MOKE) microscope
(The University of Edinburgh, 2020-06-25)The magneto-optic Kerr effect (MOKE) is the rotation and ellipticity change of polarised light upon reflection from a magnetic material. This thesis outlines the development of a MOKE setup using a modulation technique to ... -
Active interfaces, a universal approach
(The University of Edinburgh, 2020-06-25)This thesis proposes and characterises a stochastic model of an active interface within the framework of statistical mechanics. Statistical methods have indeed proven successful in probing the dynamics of kinetically ... -
Computer simulations of chromatin structures at nucleosome resolution
(The University of Edinburgh, 2020-06-25)In this thesis, I present the results from my research into the properties and organisation of chromatin structures at a nucleosome resolution. Nucleosomes, a secondary structure of DNA, are essential to the compaction and ... -
Structure and dynamics of filled liquid crystals
(The University of Edinburgh, 2020-06-25)In the formulation world, rheological properties like flow behavior and viscoelastic response determine the quality of the product. For the first time, we explore and explain the dynamic response of filled nematic thermotropic ... -
Microscopic study of the freeze-thaw stability of particle-stabilised emulsions
(The University of Edinburgh, 2020-06-25)Particle-stabilised, or Pickering, emulsions are widely used in the food and personal care industries and are present in common household products such as homogenised milk and food spreads. Pickering stabilisation has also ... -
Structure and mechanical properties of model colloids at liquid interfaces
(The University of Edinburgh, 2020-06-25)Colloidal particles adsorbed to liquid interfaces appear in a broad range of industries such as foods, mining and oil recovery. Yet our understanding of such systems remains incomplete. This thesis aims to characterise a ... -
Simulations of dynamics and motility in active fluids
(The University of Edinburgh, 2020-06-25)Active fluids are ubiquitous in nature, spanning both microscopic and macroscopic length scales. They belong to an interesting new class of nonequilibrium systems in physics. In contrast with externally driven materials, ... -
Friction and the flow of concentrated suspensions
(The University of Edinburgh, 2020-06-25)Suspensions are ubiquitous in industrial processing, yet fundamental understanding of how they flow remains limited. Recent progress on shear-thickening suspensions of non-Brownian particles establishes the importance of ... -
Framework for testing the fundamental principles in gravitation and cosmology
(The University of Edinburgh, 2020-06-25)In this thesis, we consider how in practice fundamental principles can be constrained by cosmological surveys, mainly by considering popular modifications of Einstein’s general relativity. We specifically investigate (1) ... -
Cosmic shear analysis from theory to data
(The University of Edinburgh, 2016-06-29)One of the most important challenges in cosmology today is understanding the dark matter and dark energy which composite together 95% of the cosmic energy density of the Universe. Weak gravitational lensing by large scale ... -
Broad emission line variability in active galactic nuclei on long timescales
(The University of Edinburgh, 2019-12-23)Active Galactic Nuclei are among the most powerful sources of radiation in the Universe and are known to show variability across the EM spectrum. This thesis will focus on the variability in the optical and UV range, ... -
Lattice QCD calculation of beyond the standard model kaon mixing at the physical point
(The University of Edinburgh, 2019-12-23)This thesis presents beyond the standard (BSM) model kaon mixing results calculated on the lattice with simulations at the physical light quark mass. These results were calculated using RBC-UKQCD 2+1 flavour domain wall ... -
Crystal structures and phase transitions of bismuth-tellurides under high pressure
(The University of Edinburgh, 2019-12-23)Bismuth-tellurides are binary compounds of bismuth (Bi) and tellurium (Te) which form an infinitely adaptive series, (Bi2)m(Bi2Te3)n, within certain compositional limits. Members of this series exhibit a number of ... -
Nonequilibrium steady states from a random-walk perspective
(The University of Edinburgh, 2019-12-16)It is well known that at thermal equilibrium (whereby a system has settled into a steady state with no energy or mass being exchanged with the environment), the microstates of a system are exponentially weighted by their ... -
Mapping galaxy evolution at multiple wavelengths and cosmic epochs
(The University of Edinburgh, 2019-12-12)Some of the most fundamental measurements we can make of the Universe are where and when stars formed in galaxies. In recent years, astronomers have converged on a picture in which the star formation rate density of the ... -
Tidal evolution of dwarf spheroidal galaxies and dark matter subhalos
(The University of Edinburgh, 2019-11-07)Understanding the distribution of dark matter (DM) on galactic scales is at the root of constraining the nature of DM and processes of galaxy formation like baryonic feedback. Dwarf spheroidal galaxies (dSphs), lying at ... -
Impact of Baryonic astrophysics and intrinsic alignments on dark energy and neutrino constraints in cosmology
(The University of Edinburgh, 2019-12-09)In the early 2020s, cosmology will enter an era of unprecedented precision when the next generation of large scale structure surveys begin receiving data. As a result, it is expected that stronger constraints on major ...
