Physics thesis and dissertation collection
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Recent Submissions
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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 ... -
Fluctuation and dissipation dynamics in the early universe
(The University of Edinburgh, 2019-11-26)The aim of this thesis is to study the effects of fluctuation and dissipation dynamics in Early Universe cosmology. The formal description of the Early Universe relies on cosmological fields that, in general, are not ... -
Growth of massive seed black holes and their impact on their host galaxies
(The University of Edinburgh, 2019-11-26)The recent discovery of an 800 million solar mass black hole powering a quasar at a redshift corresponding to 690 million years after the Big Bang is the latest in a growing list of observations of super-massive black ... -
Search for Higgs boson pair production with the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider
(The University of Edinburgh, 2019-11-26)Since the observation of a new particle consistent with the Standard Model Higgs boson by the ATLAS and CMS collaborations, a number of important measurements have been made to understand this new particle. For example, ... -
Growth dynamics of E. coli in the presence of cell wall-targeting antibiotics
(The University of Edinburgh, 2019-11-26)This thesis investigates the growth dynamics of Escherichia coli bacteria in the presence of cell wall-targeting antibiotics, using experiments and mathematical modelling in order to understand quantitatively how these ... -
Quantum techniques for classical black holes
(The University of Edinburgh, 2019-11-26)Modern theoretical physics has benefited from a rapid growth in mathematical technology. In particular, technology developed in one field can be quickly adapted for use in another. Two key techniques developed for ... -
Scattering studies of magnetism in non-centrosymmetric systems
(The University of Edinburgh, 2019-11-26)With there being a strong connection between the underlying structure of materials and their properties, understanding this inherent coupling will lead to more effcient materials. This thesis studies three non-centrosy ... -
Emergent complexity of microbial communities in the planetary crust
(The University of Edinburgh, 2019-11-26)Microbial communities are highly complex systems, yet are assembled from basic building blocks of some of the simplest organisms on Earth. We currently have ample information on many individual microbial taxa, but we ... -
Theory and Lattice Boltzmann simulation of active fluids
(The University of Edinburgh, 2019-11-26)Active fluids are far from equilibrium systems, nominally highly dense suspensions of elongated elements that confer to the liquid orientational order, similar in nature to the one found in liquid crystals, and an internal ... -
Reconstructing Horndeski theories from cosmological observables
(The University of Edinburgh, 2019-11-26)The nature of the accelerated expansion of the Universe remains one of the greatest challenges in modern physics. The simplest explanation is that the acceleration is driven by a cosmological constant. Large quantum ... -
Women's representation and experiences in the high performance computing community
(The University of Edinburgh, 2019-11-26)Gender imbalance in STEM disciplines (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) has been a research subject for years. Studies have shown potential reasons leading to the underrepresentation of women in such ... -
Consequences of dissipative dynamics in the early universe
(The University of Edinburgh, 2019-11-26)Warm inflation presents an exceptional description of the early universe cosmology. It is a scenario of an inflationary dynamics in which the state of the universe during inflation is not the vacuum state, but rather an ... -
Cosmology with underdensities of the cosmic web
(The University of Edinburgh, 2019-08-19)This thesis explores the utilisation of underdense regions of the Cosmic Web as a tool for studying cosmology. Underdensities, known as cosmic voids, provide a complementary approach for understanding the large-scale ... -
Two-reggeon exchange to all loop orders
(The University of Edinburgh, 2019-11-26)In the limit of very large centre-of-mass energy s the two-parton scattering amplitude is well approximated by the exchange of reggeons in the t channel. In particular, the leading contributions to the signature-even ... -
Effect of roughness on emulsification physics and phase inversion
(The University of Edinburgh, 2019-11-26)Emulsions, a kinetically stable dispersion of droplets within a second, immiscible fluid, are industrially important. Phase inversion is the process by which the dispersed phase becomes continuous and vice versa. This ...
