Deva O'Neil's homepage

Deva O'Neil's Homepage

Physics Department
Bridgewater College, VA

My history:

I received my PhD in physics from the University of California, Santa Cruz in June 2009, and my Bachelor's Degree in computational physics from the University of California, San Diego in 2002. I taught at the College of Wooster from 2009-2010 as a visiting professor.
My current field of study is in theoretical particle physics, especially electroweak symmetry breaking. My dissertation was on the Two-Higgs Doublet Model.

Research With Students

I have been working with the following undergraduate students on projects relating to electroweak symmetry breaking:

Mike Winters, Oblique Parameters in the Two-Higgs Doublet Model. Mike Winters graduated from College of Wooster in 2010 with a double major in Physics and Music. His research includes the use of sound files to represent physical data. An article on Mike Winter's research is here.

Andrew Blaikie, Electroweak Phase Transitions and Baryogenesis.
Andrew made the following movie as part of his simulation of baryogenesis. The blue bubbles represent transitions to a lower-energy state in which particles have mass; the red fluctuating background represents the initial, high-energy state of the universe, in which particles did not have mass. This transition occurred about 10^-10 seconds after the Big Bang and lasted for about 10^-13 seconds.

The sonification for this simulation was developed by Mike Winters. To learn more about this project, read Mike and Andrew's article on simulating electroweak phase transitions.

Andrew also put together this video clip zooming in on a bubble being created. Bubbles whose radius is below a critical size (left panel) shrink and disappear, wiping out the phase transition. Bubbles whose initial radius is above the critical value (right panel) survive and grow, eventually pushing the entire universe into the lower energy state, thus creating mass.

LEFT: Initial size of bubble is just slightly below the critical radius. RIGHT: Initial size is just slightly above the critical radius.

Gerhardt Funk, Oblique Parameters and CP Violation in the Two-Higgs Doublet Model (2HDM).
Gerhardt did a numerical simulation in which he studied the effect of CP-Violation on the values of the oblique parameters (S, T, and U) predicted by the 2HDM. He also examined the extended oblique parameters (V, W, and X).