Particle Physics PhD

Exploring nature at the tiniest scale, the Particle Physics group seeks to add to our understanding of the make-up of our universe.<br/><br/>By joining our research group, you will be following in the footsteps of our celebrated emeritus professor, Peter Higgs, whose groundbreaking Higgs mechanism has excited the world of physics for decades and has been the focus of operations at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN.<br/><br/>You will also have the opportunity to confer and work with some of the greatest minds in physics today, through our links with leading conferences and international facilities.<br/><br/>Our research group works in two areas: <br/><br/><br/>• Theory<br/><br/><br/><br/>• Experiment<br/><br/><br/><br/><strong>Particle Physics – Theory (PPT)</strong><br/>This research concerns fundamental physics at all energy scales, from hadronic binding energy to the massive forces at play in the first instants of the universe’s existence.<br/><br/>We collaborate with leading facilities, such as the Large Hadron Collider at CERN and the WMAP and Planck satellites.<br/><br/>Our current research explores developments in both perturbative and non-perturbative field theory, renormalization theory and the application of quantum theory to other branches of physics, such as turbulence theory and condensed matter systems.<br/><br/><strong>Particle Physics – Experiment (PPE)</strong><br/>We look to understand the fundamental particles of nature and the interactions that govern their behaviour.<br/><br/>Our research aims to solve big problems at small scales:<br/><br/><br/>- explaining the dominance of matter over anti-matter through the study of CP violation<br/><br/><br/>- understanding the mechanisms of electroweak symmetry breaking that lead to the creation of mass<br/><br/><br/>- searching for new particles<br/><br/><br/>- discovering and characterising particle dark matter<br/><br/><br/>- exploring neutrino oscillations and interactions, neutrinos of astrophysical origin and understanding the mechanism by which neutrinos gain mass<br/><br/><br/>To achieve these aims we are members of a number of experimental collaborations, including:<br/><br/><br/>• ATLAS<br/><br/><br/><br/>• LHCb<br/><br/><br/><br/>• LUX-ZEPLIN<br/><br/><br/><br/>• XLZD<br/><br/><br/><br/>• DarkSide-20k<br/><br/><br/><br/>• MicroBooNE<br/><br/><br/><br/>• SBND<br/><br/><br/><br/>• DUNE<br/><br/><br/><br/>• SuperNEMO <br/><br/><br/><br/>We therefore also have a strong team in our Advanced Detector Development Centre working on developing the technologies that make these large experiments possible. In addition, we are heavily involved in medical physics research, making use of our Particle Physics expertise, for example in PET imaging.