Projects

CERN Summer Studentship

Contributing to Garfield++ in order to account for the space charge effect in microscopic simulations of large avalanche dynamics
Working with DRD1
Building on the work of C. Lippmann, W. Riegler, Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research A 517 (2004) 54–76
A new class in Garfield++ was written, `ComponentChargedRing’, with support for grid-free and grid-assisted microscopic simulations of avalanches in the presence of space charge fields
Significant optimisations achieved following line-by-line profiling with Callgrind
Code written in C++, with data analysis done in Python
HTCondor used for batch computing
Project report can be found here
Code can be found here
Presentation slides can be found here

Eight-week internship with the MIGDAL collaboration at STFC, working towards the observation and measurement of the Migdal effect. This effect could make experiments that detect dark matter candidates sensitive to a wider mass range.
Investigation done into the use of Garfield++ and Magboltz for tracking the production of scintillation light in CF4/Ar mixtures.
Application to the GEM geometry and E-field configuration present in the MIGDAL time projection chamber.
Proof of concept system for tracking the production of scintillation light was developed.
Methods for reducing computation time of GEM drift simulations were investigated
Gained experience working with gas detectors, including the operational principles of time projection chambers and GEMs
Progress regularly presented to the collaboration. Seminar presentation given to researchers and other summer students. Project report assembled.
Project report can be found here
Code can be found here
Presentation slides can be found here

Task	Tool used
3D modelling & meshing	Gmsh
Creation of E-field map	Elmer
Gas properties & electron-gas interaction simulations	Garfield++, Magboltz
Data analysis	Python
Data visualisation/analysis	ROOT
Parallel computing	HTCondor

Extended astrophysics practical project.
Data reduction and photometry was done on observational images.
Membership to clusters was confirmed by matching proper motion and parallax data from the Gaia satellate to our processed data using TOPCAT.
Colour magnitude diagrams were produced from the processed data, and isochrones fitted to them. Age, distance and extinction parameters, with estimated errors, were obtained.
Literature search carried out to test agreement of results
Developed ability to quickly understand and use specialised scientific software and tools (QFitsView, SAOImageDS9, TOPCAT)
Results presented in a scientific report, which scored 85
Report can be viewed here

Written in Python
Uses the velocity Verlet algorithm
Supports an arbitrary number of bodies with user-defined masses and initial positions/velocities
Capability to track energy and momentum conservation
Produces an animated GIF of the results
Skills: principles of many-particle simulations. Numerical methods for simulating dynamical systems. Writing efficient, vector based code in Python. Using NumPy.
Code can be found here
For a higher quality version of the gif below, head to the GitHub page

N-body example

Finite-Difference Time-Domain method used to simulate the propagation, reflection and transmission of EM waves in the presence of dielectrics
Written using C++ and Python
Skills: understanding and using the FDTD method
Code can be found here