Bio
I am a Welsh Theoretical Physics PhD student in the Astro-Obs (Astrophysics and Observational Cosmology) and GAFD (Geophysical and Astrophysical Fluid Dynamics) groups at Newcastle University, studying under Dr. Andrei Igoshev and funded by the Royal Society.
I am also an Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Manchester Department of Chemistry, working with Prof. Fred Currell and Dr. Marcus Webb.
The main focus of my research concerns the modelling of magnetic fields in the cores of 'type II superconducting neutron stars'.
Neutron stars are relatively cold, in a quantum sense, and are the densest objects in the universe.
This means that some of the particles in the interior, the neutrons and protons, are expected to be in a quantum state of matter where they can flow with no effective resistance, known as superfluidity and superconductivity.
The flow of charged particles, such as protons and electrons, generates a magnetic field, which itself creates a force on the charged fluid and influences its flow.
The study of the motion of charged fluids and their magnetic fields is called magnetohydrodynamics.
I use advanced numerical techniques to simulate the multi-fluid magnetohydrodynamics of the core of neutron stars, taking into consideration the superconducting and superfluid nature, following from the work of Andrei Igoshev and collaborators.
In addition to studying the physics of neutron stars, I am deeply involved with radiation chemistry research at the University of Manchester.
I am a member of the MIRaCLE research group (Manchester Inhomogeneous Radiation Chemistry by Linear Expansion) working on continuum based models of radiation chemistry in liquids.
Typical approaches to modelling radiation chemistry use stochastic methods such as Monte Carlo which track individual chemical species.
The MIRaCLE group uses a mean field approach instead, whereby the concentration of species is tracked as a function space and time, and evolves according to the reaction-diffusion equations.
The MIRaCLE software package itself is written in Julia and uses bespoke numerical methods to solve these equations on a range of domains.
My involvement with this group concerns the development of computational models to simulate ion and electron induced water radiolysis at the nanoscale over very long timescales.
In future work, I hope to develop more fundamental changes to the set of differential equations, to better capture the underlying physics.
Research Interests
• Multi-fluid Magnetohydrodynamics
• Superconductivity and Superfluidity
• Neutron Stars
• Radiation Chemistry and Physics
• Ion and Electron Induced Water Radiolysis
• Computational Physics
• Physics Education