Opportunities for Postgraduate study

The Glasgow Particle Physics Experiment (PPE) group has a strong record of research and leadership, and currently includes more than twenty postgraduate students.  Our students have gone onto successful careers around the globe in academia and research, as well as finance, IT and media.

Our major efforts are in analysing data from the ATLAS and LHCb experiments which started taking data in 2009; leading future upgrades to the LHC experiments, undertaking design studies for a future neutrino factory and for a future linear collider; working on novel semi-conductor detector technologies for applications in particle physics and beyond; and building e-science and grid computing facilities.

Opportunities exist for postgraduate work in all of our research areas:  there are PhD positions available in theoretical and experimental particle physics for both UK-based and Non-UK based applicants. 

See the comments of one of our students:  Why do a PhD with PPE?

Great emphasis is put on expertise in the field and on generic skills training. We have, via SUPA, an exceptionally strong and broad programme in Particle Physics and related technical skills (such as statistical analysis and linux system skills). Students choose, with input from their supervisors, which courses to attend depending on their interests in theoretical or experimental physics. Transferable skills are fostered through the Department and Faculty Graduate Schools. Amongst other activities all Faculty research students attend a residential course on Great Cumbrae Island for teamwork skills. All PPE and PPT students attend the appropriate STFC summer school in Particle Physics at the end of year one and are encouraged to attend the STFC entrepreneurship training.

The Graduate School provides a structure for progress reports and performance and development review, as well as for feedback from students on the quality of supervision. Each student is appointed a first and a second supervisor to avoid any feeling of isolation.

Funding for new studentships has to be won each year from a range of sources – STFC quota, EPSRC DTA, Research Council Project and CASE studentships, EU. In addition University post-graduate scholarships and SUPA scholarships are awarded competitively based on the calibre of the students.

Quota Studentship Awards

We currently obtain 3 Science & Technology Facilities Council (STFC) Quota Studentships per year.  Current projects include:

• ATLAS: Search for a low mass Higgs boson
• ATLAS: Top Physics at the LHC
• LHCb: Discovering New Physics through rare decays
• LHCb: Measuring Matter / Anti-matter asymmetry

Project Awards

A current Project Award is available:  Measurement of Ionisation Cooling at MICE.

A Neutrino Factory is a proposed future facility that would create an intense beam of neutrinos from the decay of muons in a storage ring to perform long baseline neutrino oscillation measurements and to discover CP violation in the neutrino sector. The beam of muons is created from the decay of pions in a solenoidal channel. In order to inject the muons into accelerators before the storage ring, it is necessary to "cool" the beam transversally to increase the muon luminosity. Since muons are short-lived (with a 2.2 microsecond lifetime), ionization cooling is the only feasible way to reduce the emittance of the muon beam in a short time. This is achieved by introducing low Z absorbers (such as liquid hydrogen or lithium hydride) into the cooling channel, interspersed with RF cavities that restore the longitudinal momentum of the muons in focusing magnetic fields. This procedure is repeated to achieve an overall cooling effect that reduces the initial input emittance by nearly a factor of 4, according to the latest designs of a Neutrino Factory from the International Design Study (IDS-NF).

The Muon Ionization Cooling Experiment (MICE) is an international experiment at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory that aims to measure ionization cooling for the first time from a beam of muons extracted from the ISIS accelerator. This muon beam is created also from the decay of pions collected by a quadrupole channel when an oscillating target dips into the ISIS proton synchrotron. MICE consists of liquid hydrogen cells inside a focusing coil next to 200 MHz RF cavities inside coupling coils, with scintillating fibre spectrometers at either end of the cooling cell. The spectrometers measure the muon beam emittance before and after the cooling channel to demonstrate the expected 10% cooling from this configuration. The experiment is currently under construction, with data taking expected within two years.

In this PhD, you will be part of the team that will commission the experiment over the next two years and perform the measurements of ionization cooling. You will work on aspects of detector commissioning, detector calibration, characterisation of the muon beam and physics analysis of ionization cooling. You will work as part of an interdisciplinary team of particle physicists, accelerator physicists, detector physicists and engineers to realise MICE and to demonstrate the feasibility of ionization cooling for a Neutrino Factory. Funding for the project has been provided by STFC for you to start a PhD in October 2012 for a duration of 3.5 years. You will work under the supervision of Dr Paul Soler (Principal Investigator for the MICE project at the University of Glasgow) and with Dr Ryan Bayes.

Further information in the MICE website and the International Design Study for a Neutrino Factory .


Information on our past Project Awards can be accessed via these links:

• ATLAS: Thermo-mechanical design of upgrade tracker module (CASE-Plus)
• 3D Detector Development for the LHC Upgrade (CASE studentship)
• Waferscale CZT and CdTe processing for Radiation Detectors (CASE studentship)
• The Golden Measurement at a Neutrino Factory

Postgraduate training is provided within the framework of the Scottish Universities Physics Alliance (SUPA) Graduate School, and there will be opportunities to attend various summer schools and physics workshops, as well as to spend time at overseas laboratories such as CERN.

Funding

We have several STFC-funded Studentships on offer for UK and EU students who have been resident in the UK for at least three years (including for full-time education; see PPARC eligibility criteria). These Studentships cover tuition fees and provide a tax-free stipend of (2008) £12,940 per annum.

In addition, prestigious SUPA Prize Studentships and Glasgow University Scholarships , both of which cover fees and provide a stipend, are available to students of all nationalities.

We also welcome applications from candidates with external funding.

How to apply

Please register your interest in any Project by sending an email to the PPE Group Postgraduate Admissions Head, Dr Paul Soler.

On-line applications for STFC-funded studentships and University Scholarships can be made through the Physical Sciences Graduate School. Applications for the SUPA Prize Studentships can be made on the SUPA website. Please note that for Scholarship Applications candidates are recommended to contact the PPE Department by email first.

PhD Study

More information on Postgraduate study is provided here:

PhD study in the School of Physics & Astronomy