The School is committed to addressing equality, diversity and inclusion, and has a zero-tolerance stance to any form of racist or discriminatory behaviour.
As Head of School, I want to share with you the following message that has been written in collaboration with members of the School’s Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) Committee.
Race relations worldwide have been brought into sharp focus by the recent brutal killing of George Floyd in the USA. The harmful and toxic effects of discrimination are obviously not unique to the USA; at this time many of us will be reflecting on experiences of racism closer to home - be that personal experiences or those of our friends, family and loved ones, as well as those of colleagues, students, and others in our community. The events of recent days will also have generated feelings of anger, distress, or anxiety amongst us.
The University has recorded its outrage at the killing of George Floyd and has recognised in its published statement our collective responsibility to address systemic racism and to treat each other with dignity, compassion and respect.
My message is one of compassion for anyone who has been a target of racism and those that are affected by the current protests. I stand firmly behind our School’s commitment to equality, diversity and inclusion, and a zero-tolerance stance to any form of racist or discriminatory behaviour. The School of Physics & Astronomy embraces the power that diversity brings. Our Juno / Athena SWAN plan includes institutional support for a network for staff who identify as BAME, and last summer the School employed a summer intern to co-develop the School's EDI website, including links to resources on race. However, it is clear there is much more to be achieved in improving the representation and experiences of Black, Asian and minority ethnic staff and students in our School.
In recent months, the senior management team of the College of Science & Engineering has been discussing these issues. All members of this team, including all Heads of Schools, have committed to take part in bespoke Race Equality training, including addressing white privilege and recruitment/promotion. We have also committed to have open conversations about race, racism and science, and the College has agreed to fund Diversity Challenge, a live event that highlights the under-representation of certain groups in academia.
Over the summer, the School is employing student interns to look at the visible representation of scientists in JCMB and to look at aspects of decolonising the physics and astronomy we teach.
Before the lockdown, the School's EDI Committee had been looking at ways to better address the issues faced by BAME staff & students, and other protected groups. If you wish to be part of our School’s ongoing efforts to address these challenges, please contribute to the work of our EDI Committee (including, if appropriate, suggesting additional resources for the School's EDI website). In the first instance, please get in touch with the Director of EDI, victoria.martin [at] ed.ac.uk (Prof Victoria Martin).
I am a member of the EDI Committee and we are here to support any member of the School community affected by racism or by the recent events in the USA and the UK. If you would like to talk to anyone in confidence, please again contact our victoria.martin [at] ed.ac.uk (Director of EDI).
Best wishes, and stay safe.
Prof Jim Dunlop
New precision measurements of the lineshape of the χc1(3872) are helping scientists to understand the nature of this puzzling meson.
Studies of hadron states allow us to understand the properties of the strong nuclear force that binds quarks together. Since its discovery in 2003 by the Belle collaboration there has been much speculation about the nature of the χc1(3872) state. Its properties are not consistent with it being a conventional charmonium state composed of a charm-anticharm pair. This has led to speculation that it is more exotic in nature, e.g. that is a four-quark state (tetraquark) or a bound DD* molecular state. Following the discovery of the χc1(3872) state there has been a resurgence in exotic spectroscopy and many new particles (the ‘XYZ’ states) have been reported.
The LHCb (Large Hardron Collider beauty experiment) collaboration has just released the results of two analyses that make precision studies of the χc1(3872) lineshape using its decay to the J/ψπ+π− final state. Two models were used to study the χc1(3872) lineshape (Breit−Wigner and Flatté). For the first time a non-zero value of the natural width of this state is found. In addition, the precision on the measurement of the mass is improved by more than a factor of two. The difference of the χc1(3872) mass to the sum of the D and D* meson masses is found to be only 70±120 keV. The lineshape measurements hint towards the conclusion that the χc1(3872) has both charm-anticharm and molecular.
Dr Matthew Needham, Reader at the University of Edinburgh, who led one of the two studies commented:
These studies are really groundbreaking in terms of the achieved precision. The puzzle of the nature the χc1(3872) remains but these results will help us to piece together the puzzle. We are continuing to work on this subject and more results are expected in the future.
In particular it is planned to build on the Flatté fit model to make the first coupled channel analysis of the χc1(3872) lineshape in the J/ψπ+π− and DD* decay modes. In addition, the LHCb detector is currently being upgraded allowing an order of magnitude more data to be collected when the LHC restarts running in 2021.
Discovery that helium and ammonia can form compounds over a wide pressure range.
Helium and ammonia are both found in large quantities inside icy giant planets. Because helium is generally considered to be the most inert element in the periodic table, it is not clear whether these two components can react with each other under planetary conditions of extreme pressures and temperatures, or what kinds of states might emerge.
Using crystal structure search techniques and ab initio molecular dynamics simulations, an international team including Dr Andreas Hermann from the Centre for Science at Extreme Conditions found that helium-ammonia compounds can form over a wide pressure range.
Upon heating, these compounds are predicted to form plastic phases (with spinning molecules on periodic lattices) and superionic states (which are part liquid, part solid). The study published in Physical Review X and featured in American Physical Society review Physics, provides new and surprising insights into the properties of compounds that may exist in icy giant planets and into new chemistry and physics of helium compounds under extreme conditions.
Congratulations to Dr James Aird and Dr Maxwell T. Hansen who have been awarded UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) Future Leaders Fellowships.
The UKRI Future Leaders Fellowships have been instigated to ensure the strong supply of talented individuals needed for a vibrant environment for research and innovation in the UK. In this third round of the Fellowships, we are pleased that two successful candidates have chosen the School of Physics and Astronomy as their new home.
Galaxy evolution, and challenging the Standard Model
Dr James Aird will be joining the Institute for Astronomy. He will use his Future Leaders Fellowship to probe the lifecycles of supermassive black holes on timescales of millions to billions of years, and thus determine their impact on the growth and evolution of the galaxies they lie in. To achieve this, he will develop new statistical tools to combine data from a range of new, large astronomical surveys spanning X-ray, optical and radio wavelengths.
Dr Max Hansen, who will be joining the Institute for Particle and Nuclear Physics, is a theorist seeking evidence for phenomena that go beyond the current paradigm of particle physics, the Standard Model. Specifically, he is focused on understanding the role of the strong force in uncovering new physics signatures. He will use his Future Leaders Fellowship to combine cutting-edge high-performance computing with an advanced theoretical framework to inform experiments challenging the Standard Model, such as those being performed at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider.
These Fellowships follow Anna Lisa Varri and Franz Herzog who were successful in the first two rounds of the award.
UK Research and Innovation Future Leaders Fellowship
The scheme will help the next generation of researchers, tech entrepreneurs, business leaders and innovators across different sectors and disciplines to get the support they need to develop their careers. Awardees will each receive between £400,000 and £1.5 million over an initial four years, supporting novel projects, equipment and personal development.
A supernova which is at least twice as bright and energetic, and likely much more massive than any yet recorded, has been identified by a team of astronomers.
Scientists believe the supernova, dubbed SN2016aps, could be an example of an extremely rare ‘pulsational pair-instability’ supernova, possibly formed from two massive stars that merged before the explosion. The findings are published in Nature Astronomy.
Such an event so far only exists in theory and has never been confirmed through astronomical observations.
The team international team of astronomers who identified the supernova include Dr Matt Nicholl, former Royal Astronomical Society fellow and current long-term visitor at the Institute of Astronomy, the University of Edinburgh, and lecturer at the University of Birmingham, as well as astronomers from Harvard, Northwestern University and Ohio University.
Supernovae can be measured using two scales – the total energy of the explosion, and the amount of that energy that is emitted as observable light, or radiation. In a typical supernova, the radiation is less than 1 per cent of the total energy. However, in SN2016aps, the team found the radiation was five times the explosion energy of a normal-sized supernova. This is the most light ever seen emitted by a supernova.
In order to become this bright, the explosion must have been much more energetic than usual. By examining the light spectrum, the team were able to show that the explosion was powered by a collision between the supernova and a massive shell of gas, shed by the star in the years before it exploded.
The team observed the explosion for two years, until it faded to 1 per cent of its peak brightness. Using these measurements, they calculated the mass of the supernova was between 50 to 100 times greater than our sun (solar masses). Typically supernovae have masses of between 8 and 15 solar masses.
Supernova 2016aps was first detected in data from the Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System (Pan-STARRS), a large-scale astronomical survey programme. The team also used data from the Hubble Space Telescope, the Keck and Gemini Observatories, in Hawaii, and the MDM and MMT Observatories in Arizona. Other collaborating institutions included Stockholm University, Copenhagen University, California Institute of Technology, and Space Telescope Science Institute.
The research was funded through a Royal Astronomical Society Research Fellowship, along with grants from the National Science Foundation, NASA and the Horizon 2020 European Union.
Computer simulations of molecular probes binding weakly to target DNA suggests a new way to help detect diseases.
The current coronavirus crisis highlights the need for fast and accurate detection of infectious diseases. Both viral infections like coronavirus and bacterial infections like those associated with antimicrobial resistance (AMR) can be detected by screening for DNA in patient samples. However this is challenging because the amount of disease DNA is small and it has to be detected in the presence of other, non-disease DNA. Typically, scientists undertake this screening by designing molecular probes that bind strongly to the disease DNA but not to the non-disease DNA.
A new study, which is about to appear in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA, uses computer simulations to suggest how this could be done better. The idea is that instead of designing molecular probes that bind strongly to one place on the target DNA, scientists should, counterintuitively, design probes that bind weakly all over the target DNA.
Experiments are required to test how well this works in practice – but it is exciting work, given the urgent need for fast, reliable disease detection methods, especially those that can be applied in countries with a weak health infrastructure.
This work was conducted by Prof Rosalind Allen at the University of Edinburgh, jointly with a multinational team of researchers in Cambridge, China, London and Slovenia.
Scientists have used a new technique to take the first-ever measurement of atmospheric wind speed outside the solar system.
A team of Astronomers, including the Institute for Astronomy’s Dr Beth Biller, have used NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope and the National Science Foundation's Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) to take the first measurement of wind speed on a brown dwarf - an object intermediate in mass between a planet and a star.
Method of measurement
The method the team used is similar to that used to measure winds on Earth. To explain: imagine a cloud being blown by some wind. If you are looking down at Earth from space, you could measure the speed of a continent as it rotates in and out of view and a different speed for the cloud as it rotates in out of view. The difference in speed occurs because wind has pushed that cloud relative to the surface.
For planets and brown dwarfs outside of our solar system, we cannot see the clouds themselves, but when a cloud rotates into view or out of view, it changes the brightness of the planet. With that in mind, the team monitored the brightness of brown dwarf 2MASS J1047+21 and used periodic changes in its brightness to determine the rate at which the atmosphere was rotating.
Radio data
As continents on objects outside of our solar system cannot be observed, the team relied on observations at radio wavelengths to look at the rotation of a planet’s magnetic field below the atmosphere.
Since the magnetic field originates deep in the planet, or in this case brown dwarf, the radio data allowed the team to determine the interior period of rotation. Once they had an interior rotation rate and an atmospheric rotation rate, they could compare them to see how fast the wind was blowing.
The researchers measured a wind speed of 650 meters per second (1,450 miles per hour) for the brown dwarf they studied, which is 33.2 light years from earth.
Team collaboration
The team of collaborators, lead by Bucknell University‘s Professor Katelyn Allers also includes Dr Johanna Vos, from the American Museum of Natural History and Peter K. G. Williams, from the Center for Astrophysics and the American Astronomical Society.
Dr Beth Biller commented:
Pioneering this new technique is quite exciting, as it will enable future researchers to better understand the physics of atmospheres outside of our solar system.
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University of Edinburgh colleagues who are working on the LHCb (Large Hadron Collider beauty) experiment at CERN (the European Organization for Nuclear Research) have discovered a system of three particles interpreted as three new excited Xic0 states. The Xic0 state is a baryon composed of a charm-, a strange- and a down-quark (csd).
The lightest of all baryons, the proton, which is the nucleus of the hydrogen atom, is composed of two up- and one down-quark (uud) while its neutral partner the neutron is composed of two down- and one up-quark (ddu). If one (or more) light quark is replaced by either a charm c or a beauty b heavy quark we obtain heavier charmed or beauty baryon particles. The three quarks can also be formed in their lowest-energy quantum mechanical state: the ground state. Like electrons in atoms, the quarks can be rearranged into excited states with different values of angular momentum and quark spin orientation.
LHCb physicists searched for excited Xic0 states in their decay into a Λc+ baryon and a K- meson. Three new excited states of the Xic0 baryon have been observed and are named Ξc(2923)0, Ξc(2939)0 and Ξc(2965)0. The numbers in brackets represent the measured masses of each state.
Emmy Gabriel, PhD student within the Particle Physics Experiment Research Group at Edinburgh who was leading the analysis, said:
It has been incredibly interesting to perform an analysis in the field of baryon spectroscopy, and I am excited to see how the community will respond to this discovery.
The observed system seems to be related to another system of baryons observed a few years ago which drew a lot of attention from the scientific community.
Dr Marco Pappagallo, LHCb research assistant within the Particle Physics Experiment Group reported:
This discovery probes the internal structure of the baryons and helps us to understand how quarks bind together inside the hadrons.
An upgrade of the LHCb experiment is ongoing with the contribution of the Edinburgh group into commissioning the Cherenkov detector, which is essential to identify the different types of particles involved in this discovery. The LHCb experiment plans to collect a much larger dataset in the upcoming years which will allow physicists to study the properties of these new states by measuring their spin and parities.
Prof Franz Muheim, leader of the LHCb team at the University of Edinburgh said:
With this avalanche of discoveries of new baryons with charmed and b-quarks, LHCb has established charmed and beauty baryon spectroscopy as an experimental topic.
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The COVID-19 situation represents an unusual circumstance for all students. The basic principle of no semester 2 exams for Pre-Hons students, and online exams for Honours students was decreed at University level. During the past week, the School has been working to develop arrangements to ensure students learn and can be assessed in as fair a way as possible.
Coursework and teaching
Remote teaching will take place from Monday 23 March.
We ask that students:
- Try to engage with the last two weeks of the teaching term online.
- Complete all remaining coursework assignments and finish your project work to the highest standard you can. We have extended deadlines to take some account of all the problems we know you are facing.
- Check your coursesʼ LEARN pages for other guidance, the Student Website (link below) and read carefully messages sent by the Director of Teaching, Dr Ross Galloway.
Special Circumstances
The Boards of Examiners will automatically be taking into account the disruption in all cases. Accordingly, please only submit Special Circumstances for matters that extend beyond the general COVID-19 disruption, e.g. personal illness, illness of a person close to you, any of the specific problems for which you would likely have submitted Special Circumstances in a 'normal' year, or if you have difficulties with the technical aspects of on-line assessment - for example poor internet performance inhibiting upload/download.
You should also please note that the University has relaxed the evidence required for Special Circumstances such that you need not provide third-party support for cases submitted (e.g. you do not need to obtain medical notes).
Exams
Honours Students
Our aim in offering the Honours exams is to give you, as far as possible, the opportunity to take the exams you were expecting at the end of many months/years of hard work. We think that to deny you that opportunity, and the possible chance to improve your grade average, would be unfair. At the same time we want to reassure you that you will not be disadvantaged by these exams, should there be any problems - technical, logistical or personal.
These exams will provide a minority of the marks that contribute towards your final degree, so the exam boards already have (or will have) a lot of information about your performance across the programme. We also of course have information of performance on comparable exams by previous cohorts, and the exam boards have a lot of power to make sure you are treated fairly and sympathetically in light of the current unusually difficult circumstances.
We will be asking you to do the expected honours exams, according to the published exam timetable, but remotely. Further technical details will be released in due course, but so you know what to expect: you will be allowed the normal exam time + 1 extra hour to photograph or scan your written solutions and upload them to Learn as a single pdf file. We will provide all of you with a trial run of this online process well in advance of the first exam, to identify and correct any issues.
If you have learning adjustments for extra time, that will be added on, and more complex learning profiles will be catered for on an individual basis.
We realise for some of you who have returned home across the world this may mean taking some exams at a somewhat unusual time of day - we apologise for this, but we need to release the exam at the same time everywhere to maintain academic standards. So the exams will commence according the the British Summer Time (GMT+1 hr) exam timetable you have already received.
Pre-honours Students
As already stated there will be no 1st or 2nd year exams in April & May this year. You should therefore focus simply on the remaining coursework.
Please see the following points with regards to resits and progression:
- For Second-semester courses, where you are not getting the opportunity to sit exams, we will adopt your coursework mark as your mark for each course. Pre-hons students who have already passed their 1st-semester courses, and who pass 2nd-semester courses with their coursework marks, can therefore expect to progress with no further assessments.
- For students who fail either coursework for 2nd-semester courses, or who already anticipate summer resits for failed 1st-semester courses, we will provide online assessments later in the summer. This is required to enable us to gather enough evidence to be confident you can progress and cope with the next level of your degree course.
- Some students are expecting to take a 2nd Semester exam as a resit for a course failed last year - for example, Dynamics & Vector Calculus in 2nd year. In this situation we will use your coursework from this year (if you are retaking in attendance) or from last year (if you are retaking exam only), to assess your performance. A reassessment in the summer will only be required if you do not have a pass in the coursework from either year.
- In the specific case of Practical Physics, which runs over both semesters, you will not be required to pass the Experimental Physics component in addition to passing the course overall (given the unavoidable early closure of our labs).
Student support
We hope you are all safe and well. We know that many of you have left Edinburgh to be back with family and loved ones, and hope this journey has gone ok. We want to reiterate to you that we have support here in the School and the University if there are people you would like to talk to: in particular please keep in touch with your Personal Tutor. You are also welcome to direct questions or queries to kristel.torokoff [at] ed.ac.uk (Kristel Torokoff )(Senior Personal Tutor), ross.galloway [at] ed.ac.uk (Ross Galloway )(Director of Teaching), your lecturers, or James.Dunlop [at] ed.ac.uk (Jim Dunlop) (Head of School).
Congratulations to Adam who will have the opportunity to work with Nobel Laureates and young scientists at this meeting, which aims to foster exchanges among scientists of different generations, cultures, and disciplines.
The Council for the Lindau Nobel Laureate Meetings has selected 600 young scientists to come together with 70 Nobel Laureates in Lindau, Germany from 28 June to 3 July 2020. This year marks the 70th Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting, which is focused on interdisciplinary exchanges between those working in physical sciences and medicine.
The selected young scientists are outstanding undergraduates, postgraduate students and postdocs under the age of 35. They have successfully passed a multi-stage international selection process, with Adam’s application having been supported by Edinburgh University and the Royal Society.
The scientific programme will include lectures, discussions, masterclasses and panel discussions – all designed to facilitate the exchange of knowledge, ideas and experience between Nobel Laureates and young scientists across a range of disciplines.
Adam commented:
I am very excited to have been selected, and thank Edinburgh University and the Royal Society for supporting my application. I am looking forward to the opportunity to meet several figures who have inspired me throughout my life, and to develop new connections with other young scientists from across the globe.