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Constraints on the interacting vacuum — geodesic CDM scenario
At the very end of February, I published my first paper. In this post, I want to provide a brief, non-technical overview of what we* were doing in this work and the results we found. The manuscript is currently under review at MNRAS but you can view the preprint here: http://www.arxiv.org/abs/1902.10694. The aim of this…
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Surviving burn out and the post-paper blues
I published my first paper at the end of February. I won’t beat about the bush: writing this paper was exhausting. I’d had unrealistic expectations for how quickly I’d get publishable results, and consequently every delay to our draft felt like a disaster. At first we were going to be ready by July (2018). Then…
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Congres des Doctorants — a week in Paris
Last week I attended the 26th annual Congres des Doctorants organised by students of the STEP’UP Doctoral School in Paris and hosted at the Institut de Physique du Globe, near the Pierre and Marie Curie campus of the Sorbonne. The doctoral school comprises physics and geosciences students from almost every university in Paris and I…
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A collaborative week in Leiden
I spent the past week at the Lorentz Institute, the theoretical cosmology part of the physics community at Leiden University. My collaborators there are fellow members of CANTATA, an EU COST-Action that is mainly focused on creating and testing alternative theories of gravity, and I was awarded my second STSM (short-term scientific mission) by CANTATA…
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Slow progress — but progress nonetheless
This week I’m in the Netherlands, visiting colleagues at the Lorentz Institute at Leiden University. Leiden is a beautiful place– a scaled-down, tourist-free version of Amsterdam– and the institute is nice too. It’s the oldest theoretical physics institute in the Netherlands and has played host to many greats of the field, including Ehrenfest, Fermi and…
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Year Two
It turns out that maintaining a blog is somewhat difficult when faced with the time-consuming Cerberus that is a PhD. But, fuelled with a desire to practice my non-technical writing, I am dusting off my typing fingers and trying again. Two weeks ago I had my Major Review, which is essentially Portsmouth’s qualifying exam for…
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Applying for a PhD in physics
Almost exactly one year ago, I sent my final two applications off for PhD places in cosmology. One year on, as my department prepares to interview the candidates for October 2018 entry, I wanted to reflect on the application process. In total, I sent off nine applications and had three interviews. I was fortunate in…
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2017 Summer Schools
My PhD has (almost) officially begun, and this summer I attended two summer schools in preparation for the year ahead. The first was STFC’s Introductory Summer School for students in astronomy and related disciplines, and was held over the course of a week at the University of Manchester. There was a relaxed programme of events…
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Graduation
The sun was shining yesterday as I graduated from Aberystwyth with my friends and classmates in a lovely ceremony and celebration. Following the formalities, the Physics department hosted a reception where we had a department photograph and some prizes were awarded. I was very surprised and humbled to be awarded the Breen Prize for best…
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Final degree results
Yesterday I received the final results for my degree. My dissertation was awarded a grade of 82 and I also achieved a grade of 70 in my other final module, Advanced Research Topics, meaning that the final weighted average for my degree is 76. I will therefore be graduating in July with a 1st class…
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Natalie B. Hogg 