PhD projects for potential students

• The development of analytical and numerical solutions to describe the steering of single and multiple nematicons in liquid crystals. Nematic liquid crystals are under much current theoretical and experimental study as all optical swithcing devices in telecommunications networks.
• The development of fast parallel algorithms for the numerical solution of nematicon evolution and interaction in 2-D. The calculation of the interaction and/or steering of nematicons involves the numerical solution of a system of coupled partial differential equations in two space dimensions, which is computationally expensive, hence fast fast parallel algorithms are needed.
• Solitary wave interaction and evolution. Solitons occur in many physical systems and are widely studied, due to their special mathematical properties. Of interest is their interaction and evolution, in higher-order systems, which represent small corrections to well known integrable equations
• Semi-analytical solutions for reaction-diffusion equations. Many chemical systems can be modelled by sets of reaction-diffusion equations, which are hard or impossible to analyse using the standard tools of combustion theory. This project will look at methods of approximating the governing equations by sets of ordinary differential equations and analysing the static and dynamic stability of the system.

• My PhD students and graduates
• Information about postgraduate studies from the Research office .
• the seminar, "The first six months of candidature", which provides hints on starting a PhD and was given at the UOW Postgraduate Orientation Programme, 2001-2, in .ps or .pdf .