Postgraduate Projects in Particle Physics
The Particle Physics Group at Manchester offers projects in both experiment and theory. It is, also, possible to combine these two areas, and students can choose joint projects supervised by both an experimentalist and a theorist from the group. Projects are also available in accelerator physics, detector development and grid computing.
Experimental Particle Physics
The BaBar Experiment
Contact: Prof George Lafferty
 The BaBar detector at SLAC after the installation of a new muon detector |
Description
The BaBar experiment is taking data at the PEP II e+e- collider at SLAC in California. The group at Manchester built part of the electromagnetic calorimeter for the experiment, and is responsible for aspects of the electronic trigger system. The experiment is designed primarily to study the violation of the combined symmetry of charge conjugation and parity (CP) in the heavy b quark system. These investigations are giving answers to elucidate the observed asymmetry between matter and anti-matter in the Universe. The collider is also a prolific source of tau leptons, and the experiment is able to measure the properties of these particles to much better precision than was previously possible. The BaBar experiment will complete its data taking in autumn 2008.The DØ Experiment
Contact: Prof. Terry Wyatt
 An end view of the central part of the DØ detector at Fermilab |
 Some happy members of the 650-strong collaboration standing in front of the detector |
Description
The DØ experiment at the Fermilab Tevatron near Chicago studies the collisions between 1 TeV protons and 1 TeV anti-protons in what is currently the highest energy accelerator in the world. These high energies provide a window of opportunity to observe the long awaited Higgs boson, which underlies the theory about how particles acquire mass. In addition, because of its status as the world's highest energy accelerator, the Tevatron remains the only place to study directly the properties of the top quark. The DØ experiment is able to probe details of the Standard Model of Particle Physics by making precision measurements of the properties of the W and Z bosons. The production of W and Z bosons also allows us to probe the QCD phenomenology of high energy hadron-hadron collisions. The very strong Manchester DØ group is active in all of the above areas of physics analysis. The main technical responsibility of the Manchester DØ group has been connected with the experiment's trigger system. A very large and high quality data set for physics analysis has already been collected by DØ and the experiment is likely to continue to run until the end of 2010. DØ offers excellent opportunities for students who would like to focus on the physics analyisis of this large and well-understood data set. In addition, this project offers students the possibility of spending a year or more based at the experiment near Chicago.
The ATLAS Experiment
Contact: Prof Fred Loebinger
 Computer simulation of the ATLAS detector |
 The Inner Tracker, partly built at Manchester University, being installed into the heart of ATLAS in the LHC tunnel |
Description
The ATLAS experiment is currently being constructed at the site of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN. The LHC will bring 7 TeV beams of protons into head-on collision to increase significantly the centre of mass energy available for the production of new particles. The Manchester group has constructed over 600 silicon-strip detectors which will measure the positions of the particles produced at the heart of the detector to precisions of a few microns. The group is also heavily involved in the ATLAS triggering system which will select those interactions of particular interest at this new high energy frontier. The experiment is due to start taking data in 2008, and will initially be looking for signs of the Higgs boson together with evidence of a whole range of new particles predicted by Supersymmetric models. The Manchester Group is involved with many of the main physics analyses. In particular, it plays a leading role in study of Top physics, which is expected to be one of the most fruitful areas of research at the LHC. Not only will top quarks be prolifically produced, but they should give a clear indication of the discovery of any new physics processes which should be seen for the first time at these highest energies.
The Manchester group is also spear-heading the FP420 project which will run in conjunction with the ATLAS experiment. This project will open up additional possibilities in the search for new particles. Both the ATLAS and FP420 projects offer students the possibility of spending a year or more based at CERN.
The SuperNEMO Project
Contact: Dr Stefan Soldner-Rembold
 The NEMO-3 detector installed under the Alps |
Description
SuperNEMO is a new international experiment proposed as a successor to the current NEMO-3. It will search for neutrinoless double-beta decay, a process which is only possible if neutrinos have mass, and they are their own anti-particles. This possibility would require modifications to the Standard Model of Particle Physics. The experiment would be based deep underground to screen out the affect of cosmic rays. The project would involve both the analysis of current data from the NEMO-3 experiment, as well as detector development for SuperNEMO.
The International Linear Collider
Contact: Dr David Bailey
 Simulated event in a detector at the proposed International Linear Collider |
Description
The precision physics measurements at the proposed International Linear Collider will require new detectors. The group at Manchester is involved in the CALICE project which is developing a new type of electromagnetic calorimeter for this purpose. This project offers students the opportunity to be more directly involved in the development of state of the art detector hardware and electronics, and to contribute to the physics studies used to optimise the overall detector performance.
Theoretical Particle Physics
The Group has particular expertise in almost all aspects of Collider Physics phenomenology, in the Physics of the Early Universe, in Neutrino Physics and in the theoretical studies of CP violation. Our projects are often focused on aspects of theoretical physics that can be tested in ongoing or future experiments. Consequently we are especially interested in physics that is explored at the world's colliders, both present (Tevatron, PEP II, KEK and HERA) and future (LHC and Linear Collider), and work closely with the experimental particle physicists both in the group and at laboratories around the world. Opportunities exist for PhD work in almost all of our research areas and projects are generally tailored to the evolving interests of individual students and their supervisors.
Beyond the Standard Model and Particle Cosmology
Contact: Dr Apostolos PilaftsisDescription
The Standard Model of particle physics has been extremely successful in describing all current experiments, but it leaves many questions unanswered, like why particles have the masses and other quantum numbers that they do, why there are three generations of elementary particles, why there is more matter than antimatter in the universe, what the 'dark matter' of the universe is made of, whether the three fundamental forces of particle physics can be unified, and whether this can be further unified with a quantum theory of gravity. To try to answer these questions, we bring together progress in theories Beyond the Standard Model (BSM) with a phenomenological understanding of how those theories could be tested in future experiments and how we can constrain them using the existing data.
A recent exciting development is the application of ideas from particle theory to cosmology, the physics of the early universe, and the realization that cosmological data are becoming precise enough to constrain the structure of BSM physics. The group has strong links with Jodrell Bank's Theoretical Astrophysics and Cosmology Group for research in this direction.
QCD and Collider Physics
Contact: Dr Mrinal DasguptaDescription
Quantum ChromoDynamics, the quantum theory of the strong nuclear force, has an extremely rich structure, resulting from the fact that its coupling constant varies with energy. At high energies (or small distances) it is relatively small, and quarks and gluons behave like free particles and physical observables can be calculated as perturbative series in the coupling constant. At low energies (long distances) it becomes so large that perturbation theory becomes inconsistent and the theory becomes non-perturbative. These strong interactions confine quarks and gluons into the hadrons that are observed in experiment in a way that is not understood at a fundamental level. Almost every measurement and search for BSM physics in hadron collider experiments requires corrections from this confinement process in order to connect the measured quantities with the aspects of the fundamental theory that they are trying to probe.
Our research into QCD continues on two fronts. The first is to study QCD itself, through theoretical investigations, making calculations of quantities that can be measured experimentally, and interpreting data to extract a deeper understanding of the theory. The second is to apply this improved understanding to other aspects of collider physics, by providing theoretical tools for simulating and analyzing data, and collaborating with experimenters on the interpretation of their data.
PhD students in this area would have the opportunity to work closely with Prof. Mike Seymour, who is based at CERN, and with the LHC experiments in the run-up to and early period of LHC data-taking.
Diffraction and QCD at High Energies
Contact: Prof Jeff ForshawDescription
In the majority of hadron-hadron collisions, the hadrons are completely torn apart by the interaction and the final states of the collisions contain hadrons emitted at all angles. In some events however, the hadrons scatter off each other intact (diffractive scattering) or relatively unscathed, with only a few hadrons travelling roughly in the original hadrons' directions (diffractive dissociation). In either case, a large angular region of the event contains no hadrons. These diffractive events have long been known in strong interaction physics, but only more recently has theoretical progress been made in connecting this with QCD and in being able to make perturbative predictions for certain types of diffractive processes, through an expansion of QCD valid in the high energy limit (the 'BFKL' equation).
Our research in this area includes: constructing models of diffractive processes that connect the perturbatively-calculable high energy limit with the incalculable but well-measured non-perturbative region; making first-principles calculations of diffractive processes in high energy QCD; making phenomenological studies of these calculations and the extent to which they can be tested experimentally; and working closely with experimenters on the interpretation of diffractive data.
A recent surprise is the realization that diffractive processes give a unique window to search for new particles such as the Higgs boson in some BSM scenarios and the Manchester group of theorists and experimenters are leading the international effort to supplement the LHC detectors with forward proton taggers that would allow this measurement.
Applied Particle Physics
Accelerator Physics
Contact: Dr Robert Appleby
 Computer simulation of HOMs excited in the main linacs of the ILC superconducting cavities |
 Model of the CLIC linear collider |
Description
The accelerator physics group in the school of physics at Manchester is focused on the study of the dynamics and electromagnetic field excitation by particle beams in accelerators. The group places particular emphasis on complex particle motion, optical design and the effects of wake-fields. We study wakefield effects of beam collimators, and Higher Order Modes in superconducting and normal conducting cavities; this entails understanding their excitation and damping, and how to use them as an intrinsic beam-based diagnostic. We work on the main linac, crab cavities, beam delivery system, interaction region and extraction line dynamics for the ILC and CLIC projects, the study of the dynamics for EMMA and the ATF, the FP420 project for the LHC, computational beam dynamics, photocathode beam dynamics, high intensity and high energy nuclear isotope accelerators, and particle beam dumps. Opportunities exist for PhD work in these areas with students developing and using theoretical, computational and experimental skills. Students will have the opportunity to participate in research at major international facilities. Ongoing collaborations exist with the ERLP at Daresbury, CLIC and LHC/FP420 at CERN, ILCTA at FNAL and the ATF2 at KEK.
The GRID Project
Contact: Prof Roger BarlowDescription
The Particle Physics Group at Manchester has an extensive programme of e-science research, mainly directed towards the Particle Physics GRID, the successor to the World Wide Web. Projects are available on both the development of GRID middleware tools and data access control and security, and also on work on high speed, large bandwidth networking. These projects would give students the opportunity to work at the frontiers of software development, while still having direct connections with particle physics.
Further Information
Further details about all Particle Physics areas of research can be found at our website:
Enquiries about postgraduate opportunities in Experimental and Applied Particle Physics should be addressed to Fred.Loebinger@manchester.ac.uk, and those for Theoretical Particle Physics should be addressed to Jeff.Forshaw@manchester.ac.uk
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