One of the biggest open questions in physics is the prevalence of matter over anti-matter in the present universe. One of possible answers lies in the violation of charge and parity symmetry in the lepton sector that would favor matter over anti-matter so that the universe becomes dominated by matter...
The formation of carbonaceous and silicate precursor molecules to astrophysical dust grains is investigated. Using density functional theory (DFT) in combination with global optimization techniques, the ground-state binding energies of dust precursors are determined. These results are employed in atomistic nucleation theory (ANT) to predict the critical size and nucleation...
Quantum physics in the Copenhagen interpretation places an unsatisfying divide between the quantum and classical worlds. Decoherence -- the destruction of superposition states of the system -- helps us understand how the quantum transitions to the classical. Quantum Darwinism builds on decoherence to understand how information about the system is...
Electronic structure calculations for free and immersed atoms are performed in the context of unrestricted Hartree-Fock Theory. Spherical symmetry is broken, lifting de-generacies in electronic configurations involving the magnetic quantum number m. Basis sets, produced from density functional theory, are then explored for completeness. Com-parison to spectroscopic data is done...
The neutron and electron radiation effects in Ill-V compound semiconductor heterostructure devices are studied in this thesis. Three types of devices investigated are AlGaAs/GaAs high electron mobility transistors (HEMTs), AlGaAs/InGaAs/GaAs heterostructure insulated gate field effect transistors (HIGFETs), and InP/InCaAs/InGaAs single heterojunction bipolar transistors (SHBTs). HEMTs and HIGFETs are primarily investigated...
Immersion energies of atoms in a jellium environment were calculated using density functional theory and the Kohn-Sham (KS) equations. It was found that the KS scheme does not destroy an existing axial symmetry of the electron structure of the impurity atom. The definition of phase shifts was extended to those...