Alex James Wright MPhys (Hons)
- Position
- Postgraduate Research Student
- Institution
- Civil Engineering & the Environment (FEE)
- alex.j.wright2@gmail.com
- Contact
- Complete this online contact form to contact Alex.
Alex completed the NGCM iPhD programme in 2020, studying Multiscale Relativistic Simulations, under Dr Ian Hawke. His thesis was titled 'Non-ideal simulations of neutron star mergers' and was successfully defended in November 2020.
Before moving to Southampton to study in the Centre for Doctoral Training (CDT) in Next Generation Computer Modelling (NGCM), Alex completed an MPhys in Theoretical Physics at University Of Manchester - developing a keen interest in programming and computational methods.
Alex is the creator of METHOD, an open-source, relativistic, multi-fluid electro-magnetohydrodynamics solver. METHOD is an ideal platform to test and extend different MHD models simply, and uses high-resolution shock capturing schemes with both implicit and explicit time integration. It is GPU-capable, and available for use through GitHub.
Currently, Alex is working on extensions to ideal MHD. Almost all simulations of neutron star mergers assume that the star's composition is perfectly conducting. At the point of merger however, this may not be true, and electrical resistivity may become important. Resistive models of MHD can be inhibitively slow, and so an appropriate extension to ideal MHD would allow resistive simulations in reasonable times.
Alex's slides from the PHAROS 2019 meeting can be found here.
