Physics thesis and dissertation collection
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Recent Submissions
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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 ... -
Determining the weak couplings |Vub| = |Vb| using semileptonic decays
(The University of Edinburgh, 2019-11-26)This thesis will present the first observation of the decay B s 0 →K − μ + ν μ and the determination of |V ub |/|V cb |. Using 2 fb −1 of data with a centre of mass energy √s = 8 TeV provided by the Large Hadron Collider ... -
Evaluation-efficient multidimensional numerical integration
(The University of Edinburgh, 2019-11-26)Pre-existing methods for multidimensional numerical integration tend to use many more evaluations of the integrand than necessary. That is, pre-existing methods are evaluation inefficient. In some applications of ... -
Non-linear universe: the role of simulations, theory & machine learning in weak lensing cosmology
(The University of Edinburgh, 2019-11-26)The coherent distortions in the observed shapes of distant galaxies, a consequence of the spacetime curvature induced by the intervening large-scale structure of the Universe, is an abundant reservoir of cosmological ... -
Bacterial confinement in micro fluidic micro-environments
(The University of Edinburgh, 2019-11-26)Microfluidic droplet systems have shown great promise in the study of biological systems. In this thesis I explore the application of a microfluidic droplet system to the study of small bacterial populations and their ... -
Studying the growth of galaxies with JWST
(The University of Edinburgh, 2019-11-26)The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST or Webb) is a large (6.5m diameter primary mirror) infrared (0.6 < λ < 30μm) space telescope. It impressive size and wavelength coverage will revolutionise the field of galaxy formation ... -
Influence of cosmology on long term star formation
(The University of Edinburgh, 2019-11-26)This dissertation explores cosmological simulations of galaxy formation, focusing on the asymptotic efficiency of conversion of baryons into stars and asking how this quantity varies in different cosmological models. By ... -
Star-formation histories of massive quiescent galaxies
(The University of Edinburgh, 2019-11-26)This thesis presents several related analyses designed to understand the star-formation histories (SFHs) and quenching mechanisms of massive quiescent galaxies across cosmic time. More generally, it contains research ... -
Dark Matter and how to find it: a search for low-mass leptophobic Dark Matter mediators and the development of mass-decorrelated jet taggers with the ATLAS experiment
(The University of Edinburgh, 2019-11-26)A search for low-mass leptophobic Dark Matter (DM) mediator particles in 36 fb-1 of pp collision data at √s = 13 TeV collected by the ATLAS experiment is presented. The search is performed in final states where the mediator ... -
Low-dimensional models of the transition to turbulence
(The University of Edinburgh, 2019-11-26)The transition to turbulence in shear flows such as pressure driven pipe flow or plane Couette flow presents an interesting theoretical problem: how do we understand the existence of chaos when the laminar flow is stable ... -
On interacting particles in 1D and 2D
(The University of Edinburgh, 2019-11-26)Diffusion processes are pretty ubiquitous across the natural world, so it is important to try to understand them. A system in which diffusion is being driven by concentration differences between boundary reservoirs is a ...
