Veronika Charpy

Profile

I graduated with a BSc in Mathematics and Physics from the University of Glasgow in June 2023. During the summer of 2022, I had the opportunity to participate in the Philippa Fawcett Internship Programme at the University of Cambridge. There, I worked on an experimental research project investigating the role of surface tension in the propagation of viscous gravity currents. This enriching experience sparked my passion for fluid dynamics and ultimately led me to pursue a PhD in this field. In September 2023, I joined the Fluids CDT at the University of Leeds. During my first year, I worked on a team project studying the effect of fluidisation on gas retention in granular media. Since the summer of 2024, I have been working on my PhD project, which focuses on layering in geophysical fluid dynamics.

Research interests

My PhD research is investigating the spontaneous formation of layers or staircases in various fluid dynamical systems. A staircase, in this context, refers to a regular pattern of well-mixed regions alternating with interfaces characterized by steep gradients of a particular quantity. The emergence of such organised states in chaotic or turbulent systems is counter-intuitive as we might expect that systems would naturally tend to states of more homogeneous mixing.

The system of stirred stratified flow is of particular interest. In laboratory setting, this can be created by dragging a rod or a grid through initially stably stratified fluid with density varying linearly with depth. Over time, such a system develops layers in which the density is almost constant, separated by interfaces of sharp density gradients. Similar layer formation is also observed, for instance, in double-diffusive systems where a scalar field depends on two components while each diffuse at different rates. This leads to intriguing instabilities which subsequently result in the emergence of layers at later times.

Qualifications

• BSc in Mathematics and Physics: University of Glasgow

Research groups and institutes

• Applied Mathematics
• Astrophysical and Geophysical Fluid Dynamics