Events

ABSTRACT 1: The Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment was originally built to observe the hydrogen gas existing in the Universe, in order to measure the baryon acoustic oscillations. However, due to the nature of the telescope, it is also particularly effective at detecting transient events, such as the relatively new phenomenon, fast radio bursts (FRBs). Fortuitously, it turns out that the very distant FRBs have characteristics similar to those of some nearby pulsars.

DEPARTMENTAL DOCTORAL ORAL EXAMINATION

Final Doctoral Oral Examination

I will talk about mathematical modelling reports from around the world for the emerging novel coronavirus epidemic. I will explain the mathematical methods, findings and potential significance. I will also try to link these reports to events in BC. This will be a significantly updated version of the talk I gave on January 31 in the Mathematics Department.

* Please note that this talk is not open to the public; online streaming is available at 4pm at

Most of us have favourite science-fiction films - and usually we're happy to turn our scientist brains off when we watch them!  But there's actually some interesting physics buried in there.  I will focus on space-based movies and ask what they have to say about three things: (1) Space is big; (2) Space is curved; and (3) Space is expanding.  Can you guess what movies will be used to illustrate these ideas?

Perhaps the simplest question that one can ask of a distant star or planet is, "What does it actually look like?" Even the best interferometers can only give us limited information about the surfaces of select giant and/or nearby stars, while the direct imaging of exoplanet surfaces is all but impossible. Fortunately, several techniques exist that allow us to indirectly infer what the surfaces of stars and exoplanets look like from precise photometric light curves and high resolution spectral timeseries.

Graphene and solution-processed organic (plastic) semiconductors combine unique electronic, photoelectronic and mechanical properties that opens an emerging field of exciting research at the interface between two conceptually different, but

Dimensionality is one of the most important factors that critically govern phase transitions and elementary excitations in solids. Low dimensional spin systems are approximately materialized in actual three-dimensional (3D) crystals via anisotropic chemical bonding.

I will discuss the power of new observations of variable black holes (supermassive and stellar mass systems) to probe their growth and evolution. I will touch on our Milky Way's black hole Sgr A*, the Virgo cluster's M87, changing-look quasars, the multitude of systems now being discovered by LIGO/Virgo, and briefly explore how we can continue to push this frontier with a next generation of observatories.

The ability to store, transfer, and process quantum information promises to transform how we calculate, communicate, and measure. The realization of large-scale quantum systems that can achieve these tasks is an outstanding challenge and an exciting frontier in modern physics. In the past two decades, superconducting circuits based on Josephson junctions emerged as a promising platform for processing quantum information.

Accretion disks, where matter with angular momentum spirals down through a disk, occur around objects ranging from the youngest stars to supermassive black holes. But not all of this material reaches the center of the disk. Instead, some material is accelerated away from the disk. These outflows can be ejected in a narrow opening angle (what astronomers call "jets") or can be relatively unfocused (what astronomers call "winds"). While we do not know the precise processes that accelerate and collimate winds and jets, magnetic fields almost certainly play a key role.

Massive galaxies provide a unique laboratory to investigate physical mechanisms driving galaxy evolution. While the initial condition for their formation is provided by their cosmological environment, observations have revealed that galaxies have acquired diverse structures, colours and kinematics already in the first few billion years after the Big Bang.

We are now approaching a time when experimental groups will try studying quantum behavior of objects with masses of order the Planck mass.  Many have argued that it is at this scale that Quantum Mechanics may break down because of gravitational effects, and CWL theory is a concrete theory which makes such a prediction. In a recent seminar Philip Stamp has discussed introductory aspects of the theory before proceeding to discuss possible experiments in detail.

Astronomy's current model of galaxy evolution is built on a foundation of hierarchical growth, in which small galaxies merge together to form larger ones.  In addition to the simple accrual of mass, this merging process is predicted to fundamentally change the galaxies’ properties, such as dramatic morphological transformations, the triggering of bursts of star formation and high rates of accretion onto the central supermassive black hole.

Final PhD Oral Examination

Abstract:
Topological insulators (TI) have been the subject of intense theoretical and experimental investigation due to their distinct electronic properties compared to conventional electronic systems. This thesis investigates electronic properties of two topological insulators, InAs/GaSb double quantum wells and monolayer WTe2, through transport measurements at ultra-low temperatures.

Anomaly matching is one of the few universally applicable tools to constrain the dynamics of strongly coupled quantum systems.  I will give an overview of 't Hooft anomalies and their applications. Anomalies arise in a wide range of physical systems, ranging from pedagogical quantum mechanical models to Heisenberg spin chains to quantum chromodynamics. I will then discuss implications of anomalies in gapless phases described by conformal field theory.