Ash Baldwin

Ash Baldwin is a PhD student modeling the influence of strong quantum correlation and coupling effects on ultra-fast, light and electron-driven dynamics at surfaces.

PhD Research

Started: October 2024

Office: G209, Department of Chemistry

Ash’s research centers on ultra-fast, non-adiabatic surface dynamics driven by strong electron-electron and light-matter couplings. Her current work focuses on understanding how intra-adsorbate Coulomb interactions influence hydrogen scattering from metal surfaces. Her work explores:

• Ultra-fast surface dynamics
• Correlated electronic-structure
• Light-matter interactions
• Strong interactions in surface chemistry

Computational Approach

Ash brings expertise in advanced computational and theoretical methods including:

• Many-Body Theory: Enabling solutions for the ground and excited states of many-body quantum systems including using methods such as MBPT and DMRG
• Mixed-Quantum Classical Dynamics: Cutting edge methods for integrating non-adiabatic dynamics over chemically relevant time-scales
• Scientific Software Development: High-performance scientific computing and sustainable back-end software development in modern languages including Julia and Python

Educational Background

Ash completed her Master’s degree in Physics at the University of Bristol. Her master’s thesis involved modeling strongly-interacting quantum spin systems over interacting over stochastic networks. During her thesis she:

• Evaluated density matrix renormalisation group (DMRG) and matrix product state (MPS) algorithms for determining many-body ground states
• Implemented computational models in Julia
• Tested algorithms across various network topologies
• Advanced understanding of algorithm scalability

This strong background in quantum many-body physics and advanced numerical methods positions Ash well to tackle the challenging problem of quantum effects in surface dynamics.