Master of Philosophy (MPhil) in Theoretical Physics / Mathematics

University of the West of Scotland

Research in Theoretical Physics & MathematicsIn the Theoretical Physics and Mathematics team, our research interests fall broadly into the themes of:Quantum MechanicsThe main interest in the foundations of quantum mechanics theme is the exciting phenomenon of quantum backflow, which refers to the classically forbidden effect that a quantum particle may seemingly move in the direction opposite to its momentum.Optical TheoryThe work on optical theory focuses on modelling properties of photonic crystals underpinned by Floquet-Bloch theory. Further mathematical modelling research is concerned with liquid crystals, continuum modelling, and ultrasonic transducers.Non-equilibrium Statistical Mechanics, Mathematical Modelling, and StatisticsThe statistics research is focussed primarily with public health concerns and natural/technological disasters.Numerical AnalysisThe numerical analysis theme spans topics of the theory and application of rational function approximants and adaptive mesh generation for the numerical solution of stiff nonlinear differential equations. Further application of the numerical techniques lies in the area of quantum mechanical scattering theory and the related phenomenon of resonances.