The thesis of Otago PhD candidate Sam Rooney has been ranked as a 2015 Exceptional PhD Theses in the Division of Sciences. Sam’s PhD research pioneered applications of the open quantum systems approach to dilute-gas Bose-Einstein condensates, leading to significant advances in the understanding of dissipative bosonic matter waves.

Congratulations Sam!

Sam’s thesis is available on OURarchive.

Scientific achievements:

  • First numerical solution of the complete stochastic projected Gross-Pitaevskii equation. Two reservoir interaction processes cause damping and noise. Tested on breathing mode, for which energy damping was observed to be high coherent in contrast to the relatively noisy damping process where particles are exchanged with the reservoir.
  • Used to model vortex decay in a weakly oblate 3D harmonic trap. Energy damping was seen to be a significant dissipation mechanism for this quasi-equilibrium system.

A thesis is regarded as of exceptional quality when all three examiners of a candidate’s thesis agree that the thesis is of an exceptional standard in every respect – research content, originality, quality of expression and accuracy of presentation – and is amongst the top 10% of theses examined across the Division of Sciences.