Theoretical physics

Much of the theoretical work in the School compliments the experimental programs in areas such as the transport studies in semiconductors, photonics and optical communications.

One of the most exciting areas of modern theoretical physics is the modelling of the behaviour of complex systems such as climate patterns and the turbulent flow of fluids. RSPhysSE is one of the major players in the ARC Research Network for Complex Systems with many of our researchers undertaking research in this field.

The School also has strong research interests in Nonlinear optics and solitons, developing basic theories of solitons for optical systems that including all-optical information transmission lines and ultra-short pulse lasers. This work also extends to the design of specific novel planar and fibre light processing devices, including those with the potential for commercialisation.

Potential student research projects

You could be doing your own research into theoretical physics. Below are some examples of student physics research projects available in our school.

How does a black hole ring?

We study the numerical waveforms for the gravitational waves emitted during the black hole ringdown stage, implement tools and data analysis frameworks, and analyze the latest gravitational-wave data to estimate black hole properties and test the general theory of relativity.

Dr Lilli (Ling) Sun, Distinguished Prof Susan Scott

Introduction to quantum integrable systems

The aim of this project is to introduce quantum integrable systems which play a very important role in modern theoretical physics. Such systems provide one of very few ways to analyze nonlinear effects in continuous and discrete quantum systems.

A/Prof Vladimir Mangazeev

Time dependence of nuclear fusion

This project will allow us to understand the time-dependence of quantum tunnelling and nuclear fusion.

Dr Edward Simpson

Variational approach to many-body problems

In recent years there was a large boost in development of advanced variational methods which play an important role in analytic and numerical studies of  1D and 2D quantum spin systems. Such methods are based on the ideas coming from the renormalization group theory which states that  physical properties of  spin systems become scale invariant near criticality. One of the most powerful variational algorithms is the corner-transfer matrices (CTM) method which allows to predict properties of large systems based on a simple iterative algorithm.

A/Prof Vladimir Mangazeev

Please browse our full list of available physics research projects to find a student research project that interests you.