Ngcobo, Xolane Ignitious2018-07-172018-07-172017Ngcobo, Xolane Ignitious (2017) Quasinormal modes for a spin-3/2 field in a Reissner-Nordstrom background, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, https://hdl.handle.net/10539/25006https://hdl.handle.net/10539/25006A dissertation submitted in the fulflment of the requirement for the Master of Science in the school of physics, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2017.In this dissertation I will present quasinormal mode results calculated using two approximation methods; the Wentzel-Kramers-Brillouin (WKB) and the Asymptotic iteration method (AIM). I will rst do two brief examples, where we will compute the QNMs for a scalar eld in a Schwarzschild and Reissner-Nordstr=om background, then the QNMs for a massless Dirac spinor in a Schwarzschild background. These two examples will help build some intuition leading up to the main subject of this dissertation - the spin-3/2 field. The use of the WKB method is motivated by the works of Sai Iyer and Clifford M. Will [1], where they applied the WKB approximation method to computing the QNMs for black holes perturbed by fields. The AIM approximation method used here is the improved AIM approach of Cho et al [2]. This work is aimed at understanding the behaviour of spin-3/2 fi eld in a blackhole background, and since the Schwarzschild background for the spin-3/2 has been intensively studied, I have decided that the Reissner-Nordstrom background will be very interesting to study as it is a charged background.Online resource (viii, 63 leaves)enSchwarzschild black holesBlack holes (Astronomy)Thesis