This book presents a comprehensive theory on glide-symmetric topological crystalline insulators. Beginning with developing a theory of topological phase transitions between a topological and trivial phase, it derives a formula for topological invariance in a glide-symmetric topological phase when inversion symmetry is added into a system. It also shows that the addition of inversion symmetry drastically simplifies the formula, providing insights into this topological phase, and proposes potential implementations. Lastly, based on the above results, the author establishes a way to design...

This book presents the high-precision analysis of ground states and low-energy excitations in fractional quantum Hall states formed by Dirac electrons, which have attracted a great deal of attention. In particular the author focuses on the physics of fractional quantum Hall states in graphene on a hexagonal boron nitride substrate, which was recently implemented in experiments. The numerical approach employed in the book, which uses an exact numerical diagonalization of an effective model Hamiltonian on a Haldane’s sphere based on pseudopotential representation of electron interaction,...

This thesis presents the first successful realization of a compact, low-noise, and few-cycle light source in the mid-infrared wavelength region. By developing the technology of pumping femtosecond chromium-doped II-VI laser oscillators directly with the emission of broad-stripe single-emitter laser diodes, coherent light was generated with exceptionally low amplitude noise — crucial for numerous applications including spectroscopy at high sensitivities. Other key parameters of the oscillator's output, such as pulse duration and output power, matched and even surpassed previous...

This book describes a user-friendly, evolutionary algorithms-based framework for estimating data-driven models for a wide class of dynamical systems, including linear and nonlinear ones. The methodology addresses the problem of automating the process of estimating data-driven models from a user’s perspective. By combining elementary building blocks, it learns the dynamic relations governing the system from data, giving model estimates with various trade-offs, e.g. between complexity and accuracy. The evaluation of the method on a set of academic, benchmark and real-word problems is reported...

Absolute concepts of time and energy are integral to standard thermal physics, but background independent systems are devoid of them. This thesis explores the foundational question of generalising equilibrium statistical mechanics to background independent systems, and applies the resulting formulation to non-perturbative discrete quantum gravity. It offers a discussion of the rich interface of thermal physics and quantum gravity in this context, providing a broad contextualisation of such topics. This work details how standard tools from many-body physics can be generalised to discrete...

In this work, the interaction between the Higgs boson and the top quark is studied with the proton-proton collisions at 13 TeV provided by the LHC at the CMS detector at CERN (Geneva).At the LHC, these particles are produced simultaneously via the associate production of the Higgs boson with one top quark (tH process) or two top quarks (ttH process). Compared to many other possible outcomes of the proton-proton interactions, these processes are very rare, as the top quark and the Higgs boson are the heaviest elementary particles known. Hence, identifying them constitutes a significant...

This thesis presents a search for long-lived particles decaying into displaced electrons and/or muons with large impact parameters. This signature provides unique sensitivity to the production of theoretical lepton-partners, sleptons. These particles are a feature of supersymmetric theories, which seek to address unanswered questions in nature. The signature searched for in this thesis is difficult to identify, and in fact, this is the first time it has been probed at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). It covers a long-standing gap in coverage of possible new physics signatures. This thesis...

This book highlights the most complete characterization of the Higgs boson properties performed to date in the "golden channel," i.e., decay into a pair of Z bosons which subsequently decay into four leptons. The data collected by the CMS experiment in the so-called Run-II data-taking period of the LHC are used to produce an extensive set of results that test in detail the predictions of the Standard Model.Given the remarkable predictive power of the SM when including the Higgs boson, possible new physics will require even more extensive studies at higher statistics. A massive upgrade of the...

The development of the base-load capable, climate-friendly, and practically inexhaustible source of "geothermal energy" represents an important pillar of the energy supply of the future. If it were possible to expand geothermal energy production accordingly, Germany could generate 100% of its energy in a climate-neutral manner by 2050. The joint research project "Dolomitkluft," funded by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy from 2016 to 2018, aims to establish a new and improved reservoir model for the Upper Jurassic carbonates of the Northern Alpine Foreland Basin for...

In recent decades, the way human beings interact with technology has been significantly transformed. In our daily life, ever fewer manually controlled devices are used, giving way to automatized houses, cars, and devices. A significant part of this technological revolution relies on signal detection and evaluation, placing detectors as core devices for further technological developments. This book introduces a versatile contribution to achieving light sensing: Organic Semiconductor Devices for Light Detection. The text is organized to guide the reader through the main concepts of light...