Kenyon's Teacher-Scholar Postdoctoral Science Fellow and Visiting Assistant Professor of Physics Chloe Richards will be presenting in this week's Physics Colloquium about her research in numerical relativity as it relates to cosmological simulations.
"As a graduate of a small liberal arts college myself, I could not be more excited to continue my physics career at Kenyon. To get to know me a bit better during this colloquium, I will begin by sharing my journey through physics as well as some of my non-physics passions that I have picked up along the way. Then, I will highlight some of my research that has really excited me over the past couple of years.
"My field of research is known as numerical relativity, or, in other words, I solve the nonlinear Einstein equations on a computer. Traditionally, numerical relativity has proven to be an invaluable tool in gravitational physics but more recently, the community (including right here at Kenyon!) has begun to think about ways in which numerical relativity can be applied to cosmological simulations as well. This budding area of research joining numerical relativity and cosmology has really inspired my physics research.
"In this talk, I will present two numerical relativity projects that span from black hole evolution to simulations of the early universe. The first project studies black holes evolving in the presence of two kinetically coupled scalar fields. The motivation for this work is twofold as we consider whether the kinetic coupling between the fields is sufficient to “wake” the otherwise dormant field and if so, study the impact on the black hole spacetime. The second project considers a first order phase transition described by a scalar bubble expanding through a fluid. Through these simulations, we aim to characterize the resulting gravitational-wave power spectrum and gain insight into the evolution of the early universe."
Join us on Friday, Sept. 4, for this exciting presentation from Chloe Richards, Kenyon's Teacher-Scholar Postdoctoral Science Fellow and visiting assistant professor of physics. Lunch will be available in Hayes 216 from 11:45 a.m. to 12:15 p.m., and the presentation will begin in Hayes 211/213 at 12:10 p.m. We hope to see you there!