Eugene A. Lim, Professor of Theoretical Physics

yes I do play a scientist in real life
Welcome to my old-school html-wrangling webpage.

My officious, prettier but more out-dated KCL page is here.

Research Interests

I am primarily interested in theoretical cosmology. My current research is focused on the use of numerical relativity techniques to probe strong gravity phenomena in cosmology and other aspects of theoretical physics.

Before this, I have worked on a broad array of topics, which in rough chronological order are : Initial conditions of primordial perturbations, Lorentz Violation in Cosmology, gravitational waves from the end of inflation, primordial non-Gaussianities, Minkowski Functionals as probe of the large scale structure, higher order non-Gaussianities in the Cosmic Microwave Background, weak lensing of large scale structure, relativistic collisions of bubbles and solitons, and quantum information of cosmology.

As a "Senior Person(tm)", I am one of the original developer and founding member of the GRTL Code Collaboration which developed many Numerical Relativity tools including GRCHOMBO. Now I float around like an old guy pontificating and not doing the hard stuff. I am on the DiRAC Project Board.

I am presently funded by Leverhulme Trust to understand how fundamental theory can inform inflationary initial conditions and a UKRI/STFC Collaborative Computational Project grant to build a UK Numerical Relativity Community. I was previously also funded by FQXi. Computational resources are funded by PRACE and DiRAC.

A Short Academic Bio

I graduated from the University of Chicago with a PhD in Astronomy and Astrophysics, with Sean Carroll as my advisor. I did postdocs at Yale University and Columbia University, before taking up a lectureship at Cambridge DAMTP and a fellowship at King's College Cambridge. I joined King's College London in 2012. Since Columbia University was formerly known as King's College, I moved from King's College to King's College to King's College in succession, although they were all different Kings. I was born in Penang, Malaysia -- which I highly encourage you to visit.

Here is my CV, I was told to keep this up to date by people more successful than I am (it's not).

A Selection of Links

Research:

Teaching and Lecture Notes:

  • Cambridge Math Tripos IB Quantum Mechanics
  • KCL 5CCP2332 Symmetry in Physics
  • KCL 6CCP3630 General Relativity
  • KCL 6CCP3212 Statistical Mechanics
  • Cambridge Math Tripos Part III Advanced Cosmology : Primordial
  • KCL 5CCP5400 Thermal Physics (Kinetic Theory of Gas Section)
  • Concepts in Theoretical Physics for 1st Year
  • 3rd year Project (2017-18)

    • My Research Group Members:

  • Dr Nicole Righi (Postdoc)
  • Liina Chung-Jukko (PhD, with Dr Doddy Marsh)
  • Panos Giannadakis (PhD)
  • Claire Rigouzzo (PhD) (with Dr Francisco Rodriguez-Fortuno)

    • Former Members:

  • Ge Bo Xuan (PhD 2025, Postdoc at the Chinese Academy of Sciences)
  • Eloy de Jong (PhD 2024, Working in Data Science)
  • Matthew Elley (PhD 2023, Postdoc at University of the Basque Country)
  • Wei Ning Deng (Visiting Masters student from National University of Taiwan) (Now doing a PhD at Cambridge University)
  • Oliver Denton-Turner (PhD 2021, UK Civil Service)
  • Josu Aurrekoetxea (PhD 2021, Beecroft Fellow and Junior Reseerch Fellow at Queen's College, Oxford)
  • James Widdicoombe (PhD 2019, Working in Data Science)
  • Thomas Helfer (PhD 2019, Postdoc at John Hopkins University)
  • Katy Clough (PhD 2016, Rutherford Fellow and Senior Lecturer at QMUL)
  • Simon Su (PhD 2014, Working in finance)
  • Tai-jun Chen (PhD 2014, Senior Lecturer at Xiantong-Liverpool University)

    • How to apply for a PhD (for Undergraduates) :

    Every year, I give a talk to the undergraduates at KCL on how to apply for a PhD. The talk is here. The UKCISA guidance on Home/International Fee status is here.

    Contacts

    Office: S7.20
    Address: Department of Physics
    King's College London, The Strand, WC2R 2LS
    eugene.lim@kcl.ac.uk or eugene.a.lim@gmail.com
    Social Media: @tukohbin.bsky.social