
Dr Chris Stevens
Office:Phone:
Email: cstevens@maths.otago.ac.nz
** Chris left the department in September 2021 **
Research
My research lies in the field of mathematical and computational relativity. I am particularly interested in:
- Black holes and gravitational waves
- Initial boundary value problems for Einstein’s field equations
- Cauchy-characteristic matching and characteristic extraction
- The conformal field equations and global properties of space-times
- Conformal Cyclic Cosmology
I have multiple student projects available; if you are interested in doing a fourth-year project, MSc. or Ph.D. related to any of the above fields feel free to send me an email, or stop by my office to discuss the possibilities.
Research grants
- (2018-2020) Competitive Programme for Rated Researchers, Cauchy characteristic matching, and other uses of the characteristic method in numerical relativity, 1.1 million ZAR over three years, NRF, South Africa.
Awards
- (2020): Outstanding Research Group, Division of Science, University of Otago.
- (2019): IOP Publishing Outstanding Reviewer Award, Classical and Quantum Gravity.
- (2013): Aitken prize, New Zealand Mathematical Society.
Positions
- 13th Sep. 2021 - Applied Mathematics Lecturer, University of Canterbury, New Zealand
- Apr. 2020 - Sep. 2021 Marsden Grant Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Otago, New Zealand
- Oct. 2018 - Mar. 2020 Applied Mathematics Lecturer, Rhodes University, South Africa
- Jan. 2018 - Sep. 2018 Claude Leon Postdoctoral Fellow, Rhodes University, South Africa
- Apr. 2017 - Dec. 2017 CoE Postdoctoral Fellow, Rhodes University, South Africa
- Jul. 2016 - Mar. 2017 Temporary Lecturer, University of Otago, New Zealand
Postgraduate students
- 2019- Jonathan Hakata (MSc., submitted)
- 2019 Sebenele Thwala (MSc., completed)
- 2019 Sinakho Gobozi (honours, completed)
Publications
- Frauendiener, J., and Stevens, C., "A new look at the Bondi-Sachs Energy-Momentum" arXiv preprint arXiv:2104.13646 (2021)
- Frauendiener, J. and Stevens, C., The non-linear perturbation of a black hole by gravitational waves. I. The Bondi-Sachs mass loss. Accepted to Classical and quantum gravity (2021)
- Frauendiener, J., Hakata, J. and Stevens, C., "Can gravitational waves halt the expansion of the universe?" Universe (2021), 7, 228
- John, Anslyn J., and Stevens, C., “Accretion onto deformed black holes via pseudo-Newtonian potentials.” arXiv preprint arXiv:1904.10377 (2019). Conference proceedings for HEASA 2018.
- Doulis G., Frauendiener, J., Stevens, C.,& Whale, B., "COFFEE - An MPI-parallelised Python package for the numerical evolution of differential equations", SoftwareX (2019) 100283
- John, A., & Stevens, C., Bondi accretion in the spherically symmetric Johannsen-Psaltis space-time European Physical Journal C (2019) 79:962
- Barack, Leor, et al. Black holes, gravitational waves and fundamental physics: a roadmap. Classical and quantum gravity 36.14 (2019): 143001.
- Beyer, Florian, et al. “The numerical initial boundary value problem for the generalized conformal field equations.” Physical Review D 96 (2017): 084020.
- Frauendiener, J., Stevens, C., and Whale, B., “Numerical evolution of plane gravitational waves in the Friedrich-Nagy gauge.” Physical Review D 89.10 (2014): 104026.
- Barker, R. J., et al. “Closed‐population capture–recapture modeling of samples drawn one at a time.” Biometrics 70.4 (2014): 775-782.