PhD project: High energy frontier physics at ATLAS
Project description
The Atlas experiment at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN will provide a very rich experimental physics programme, which may change fundamentally our understanding of Particle Physics: it will elucidate the electroweak symmetry breaking mechanism that provides mass generation in the Standard Model. It may also lead to the discovery of new particles and candidates for the missing dark matter in the Universe. Students will contribute to the maintenance and monitoring of the detector, software and/or trigger system and study data taken by ATLAS.
The group made direct contributions to the recent discovery of the Higgs boson, and has been working on the measurement of its properties (mass, interaction strength, width) in the "golden" four-lepton channel, as well as in searches for the signature of the Higgs decaying into bottom quarks. The group plans a comprehensive programme of searches for new particles not predicted by the Standard Model in Run-2, including additional copies of the Higgs boson. These will focus on new particles decaying to pairs of W, Z, or H bosons and build on our existing expertise in the H → ZZ and H → WW channels.
The ATLAS detector is sophisticated and complex and produces enormous of data. We also welcome applications from students who wish to work with state of the art systems such as the High Level Trigger, simulation, distributed computer software (e.g. the GRID) or improving the performance of analysis software, for example by using GPUs (Graphics Processing Units).
Project supervisors
- Professor Victoria Martin (School of Physics & Astronomy, University of Edinburgh)
- Professor Christos Leonidopoulos (School of Physics & Astronomy, University of Edinburgh)
- Professor Philip Clark (School of Physics & Astronomy, University of Edinburgh)
- Professor Sinead Farrington (School of Physics & Astronomy, University of Edinburgh)
- Dr Yanyan Gao (School of Physics & Astronomy, University of Edinburgh)
- Dr Liza Mijovic (School of Physics & Astronomy, University of Edinburgh)
The project supervisors welcome informal enquiries about this project.
Find out more about this research area
The links below summarise our research in the area(s) relevant to this project:
- Find out more about ATLAS.
- Find out more about Particle Physics Experiment.
- Find out more about the Institute for Particle and Nuclear Physics.
What next?
- Find out how to apply for our PhD degrees.
- Find out about fees and funding and studentship opportunities.
- View and complete the application form (on the main University website).
- Find out how to contact us for more information.