It is necessary to activate JavaScript to navigate this site.

Proposed theses topics

Proposed by Tomáš Vejchodský   

Title: Deterministic and stochastic modeling in molecular and cell biology  

Description :    Diploma thesis (in Czech)

URL Proposal:  not available

Description / Comments:
This diploma thesis will concern the deterministic and stochastic modeling of chemical systems in terms of ordinary differential equations (ODE) and stochastic simulation algorithms (SSA). The motivation comes from the biology, from the mathematical modeling of gene regulatory networks, cell cycle, circadian rhythms, etc.
Goals of the thesis will specified according to the individual interests of the student. It is possible to concentrate on the numerical methods for partial differential equations (PDE), mathematical modeling, analysis of PDE, or to the stochastic analysis.
The co-advisor of the thesis will be Dr Radek Erban (University of Oxford, UK) and possibly others. There is a possibility of a visit of the group of Dr Radek Erban in Oxford. http://people.maths.ox.ac.uk/erban/
For more information see the attached flier (in Czech).

Proposed by Marcello Ortaggio

Title: Aspects of gravity and electromagnetism in higher-dimensional spacetimes  

URL Proposal:  not available

Description / Comments:
In recent years, there has been a significant increase in interest in the properties of gravity in more than four spacetime dimensions, motivated, e.g., by fundamental theories such as string theory, along with the idea of extra dimensions and braneworld models of TeV gravity. The study of higher-dimensional Lorentzian spaces is of interest also from a purely geometrical viewpoint.

Several higher-dimensional solutions of classical General Relativity have been known for some time, and various techniques to study exact solutions have been extended to an arbitrary number n of dimension. There are, however, general qualitatively new features when n>4. These concern, for example, the Goldberg-Sachs theorem, peeling properties of gravitational and electromagnetic fields, and the “uniqueness” of certain black holes solution within algebraically special spacetimes.

In relation to the above points, topics of interest for a PhD thesis include the asymptotic behaviour of the gravitational and electromagnetic field, and applications of classification schemes and general formalisms (such as Newman-Penrose, Geroch-Held-Penrose) to the study of exact solutions in higher dimensions.


Selected references:

A. Coley, R. Milson, V. Pravda, A. Pravdova, Classification of the Weyl tensor in higher dimensions, Class.Quant.Grav. 21 (2004) L35-L42

M. Ortaggio, V. Pravda and A. Pravdová, Algebraic classification of higher dimensional spacetimes based on null alignment, 2013 Class. Quantum Grav. 30 013001

G. Bernardi de Freitas, M. Godazgar, H. S. Reall, Uniqueness of the Kerr–de Sitter Spacetime as an Algebraically Special Solution in Five Dimensions, Commun. Math. Phys. 340 (2015) 291-323

M. Ortaggio, A. Pravdová, Asymptotic behaviour of the Weyl tensor in higher dimensions, Phys. Rev. D90 (2014) 104011

M. Ortaggio, V. Pravda, Electromagnetic fields with vanishing scalar invariants, Class. Quant. Grav. 33 (2016) 115010

Proposed by Michal Křížek   

Title: Geometry of Simplicial Finite Element Meshes  

Description :    Ph.D. topic description

URL Proposal:  not available

Description / Comments:
This Ph.D. topic focuses on geometric aspects of simplicial finite element methods and aims at several open problems such as regularity of the bisection algorithm in higher dimensions, construction of nonobtuse simplicial meshes in an arbitrary tetrahedron, decomposition of an arbitrary simplex into path simplicies, face-to-face simplicial tiling of the four dimensional space and finding the sufficient and necessary geometric condition for the convergence of the finite element method. See the attached description for more information.