Kam To Billy Sievers

About Me

First Name: Kam To Billy
Surname: Sievers (formerly Chan)
Nationality: Citizen of Canada, Hong Kong (China), Thailand
Hometown: Hong Kong (Kowloon)

Born and raised in Hong Kong having attended an English-speaking school (K-12), I moved to Canada to attend the University of Calgary for a BSc Honours in Physics. This was made possible by an International Student Entrance Scholarship valued at 60000 CAD (15000 CAD/yr). I then drove over to Newfoundland where I attained a MSc at the Memorial University of Newfoundland and Labrador (MUN), distinguished as a Fellow of the School of Graduate Studies. At MUN, I was supervised by Dr. Ivan Booth and mentored by Dr. Robie Hennigar. I began as a PhD student in September of 2023 at McMaster University in the Department of Physics and Astronomy under the supervision of Dr. Hari Kunduri.

Education:
• BSc (Hon) in Physics University of Calgary 2020
• MSc in Physics Memorial University of NL 2023
  
• PhD with Dept. of Physics and Astronomy at McMaster University (2023 start)
  

Now a citizen of Canada, I associate heavily with the City of Calgary. A proud supporter of the Dinos, Flames, and Stampeders, I could be found playing squash, hiking, snowboarding, or woodworking on my days off around either the Hamilton ON or Calgary AB area.
I now legally go by the surname Sievers, in alignment of that of my step-father. My mom being Thai and my step-father a New Yorker, I am fluent in English and can only casually speak Cantonese and Thai.

Research

Research history and statement

My research to date has focused primarily on classical gravitation. Under Dr. Sean Stotyn, I investigated the properties of near horizon geometries for my BSc Honours thesis. Supervised by Dr. Ivan Booth with the mentorship of Dr. Robie A Hennigar, my MSc thesis explored properties of exotic self-intersecting surfaces in black hole interiors. For my PhD, supervised by Dr. Hari Kunduri, I am interested in performing research in the field of quantum gravity, for example tackling questions on gravitational aspects of the AdS/CFT correspondence.

Self-intersecting Marginally Outer-trapped Surfaces (MOTS)

The black hole merger evolution is not fully understood. The process in which two horizons ultimately become one is complicated as the size, shape, and nature of these horizons are dictated by geometry which is evolved nonlinearly with Einstein's general relativity. Recent advancements have made numerically approximating these horizons possible throughout a binary black hole merger simulation.
A marginally outer-trapped surface (MOTS) is a surface of vanishing outward null expansion. The most popular example of a MOTS are apparent horizons, which are often taken as the outer-most MOTS (and is popularly known as the event horizon, although this is seldom the case). With new MOTS-finding techniques, it was found that self-intersecting MOTSs played a key role in the merger process [1903.05626 gr-qc]. Since then, these self-intersecing MOTSs have been found in extremely simple black hole interiors [2005.05350 gr-qc].

The goal of the research is to investigate these self-intersecting surfaces in a variety of scenarios in the scope of analytical spacetime solutions. The questions include "what properties of the spacetime enable such self-intersecting properties", "are there black hole (thermo)dynamics associated with these self-intersections", and "what do the self-intersections imply in the context of the AdS/CFT duality (of self-intersecting MOTSs found in AdS spacetimes)"? Papers towards these questions include [2111.09373 gr-qc, 2210.15685 gr-qc, 2312.00769 gr-qc]. Here is a link to an applet made to display some MOTS analysis for the Kruskal-Szekeres case [ link ].

I would love to collaborate–there are many directions this self-intersecting MOTSs research can be taken, please contact me!

Outreach

I have had the privilege to travel and give talks internationally, both conference presentations (~15 mins) and seminar lectures (~1 hr). A list of upcoming and past appearances can be found on my CV with a recording [link] and a poster [link].

Throughout my academic career, I have involved myself in extra-curricular activities to promote the field of physics and astronomy to my local communities. In Calgary, I volunteered at the Rothney Astrophysical Observatory where I operated a portable telescope, showcasing celestrial objects to visitors. My destinations of choice through the Celestron 14- or 11-inch telescope are Jupiter, Saturn, or Messier 13. I was also employed as a high school tutor for four years, where I taught junior and senior high school students physics and calculus (PHYS 20-1/30, MATH 30-1/31). You will also find me at most departmental association events.

Photos

Some may have seen me in different light or shorter hair, so here is a gallery of things I have done recently. Many close to me also live by the phrase "Photos or it didn't happen", so here are some photos of my (mis)adventures:

(the background photo of the mountains, lodge, and ski/snowboard-ers is one I took at Lake Louise (Ski Resort), Banff AB, Canada, Dec 2022)

2024

2023

2022

2021

Contact

I can be best reached by e-mail at

sieversktb [at] mcmaster [dot] ca (academic)
or
ktbsievers [at] gmail [dot] com (personal)

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Elements

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