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Atomic, Molecular and Optical Physics

Theses/Dissertations

Optimization

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Full-Text Articles in Physical Sciences and Mathematics

Modeling And Numerical Analysis Of The Cholesteric Landau-De Gennes Model, Andrew L. Hicks Apr 2024

Modeling And Numerical Analysis Of The Cholesteric Landau-De Gennes Model, Andrew L. Hicks

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This thesis gives an analysis of modeling and numerical issues in the Landau-de Gennes (LdG) model of nematic liquid crystals (LCs) with cholesteric effects. We derive various time-step restrictions for a (weighted) $L^2$ gradient flow scheme to be energy decreasing. Furthermore, we prove a mesh size restriction, for finite element discretizations, that is critical to avoid spurious numerical artifacts in discrete minimizers that is not well-known in the LC literature, particularly when simulating cholesteric LCs that exhibit ``twist''. Furthermore, we perform a computational exploration of the model and present several numerical simulations in 3-D, on both slab geometries and spherical …


Can Parallel Gravitational Search Algorithm Effectively Choose Parameters For Photovoltaic Cell Current Voltage Characteristics?, Alan Kirkpatrick May 2021

Can Parallel Gravitational Search Algorithm Effectively Choose Parameters For Photovoltaic Cell Current Voltage Characteristics?, Alan Kirkpatrick

Honors Projects

This study asks the question “Can parallel Gravitational Search Algorithm (GSA) effectively choose parameters for photovoltaic cell current voltage characteristics?” These parameters will be plugged into the Single Diode Model to create the IV curve. It will also investigate Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) and a population based random search (PBRS) to see if GSA performs the search better and or more quickly than alternative algorithms