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Warner, Cael

University of British Columbia

Multiple electrodynamic theories have existed for over a century, which has led to controversy over a field-based description of light-matter interactions. Experiments that aim to support or disprove an electrodynamic theory benefit from accurate numerical simulation of each theory's predictions of light-matter interactions. However, most experiments and their numerical simulations are limited to cases of rigid-body translation or elastic deformation, which are equivalently predicted by each electrodynamic theory. Alternative experiments that investigate the continuous deformation of fluids subjected to optical radiation pressure may benefit from multi-physics simulation based on statistical mechanics, which are locally non-linear and rigorously conserve momentum. This thesis applies the lattice-Boltzmann method to describe both the electrodynamic and kinetic sub-systems in a multi-physics simulation of a quasi-stationary multiphase fluid subjected to optical radiation pressure. The simulations are used to model multiple electrodynamic formalisms, which yield distinct predictions of microscale fluid deformation. Multiphysics simulations based in statistical mechanics may assist in realizing a single theory for electrodynamics.

Text; Still Image

2021-12-14

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

http://hdl.handle.net/2429/80438

Electrical Engineering

University of British Columbia

UBCO

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/