Flaviu, who is a final year CASE student with NPL has won the thesis presentation award at the first NPL Post Graduate Institute for his presentation titled 'Electronically Coarse Grained Molecular Modelling'.
Congratulations to Flaviu for winning the best presentation award at the first annual Postgraduate Institute conference at NPL. The conference was attended by 150 delegates over two days, comprising postgraduate researchers based both at NPL and partner universities, their supervisors, invited guests and speakers.
A number of the postgraduates also took part in a challenge to describe their doctoral work comprehensively in just three minutes, with just one slide. The winner was Flaviu Cipcigan, for his presentation 'Electronically Coarse Grained Molecular Modelling',
Warm inflation is an alternative and simpler dynamical picture for the the early Universe, in which the dominant expansion period occurs in a warm phase, whereas in the standard inflation picture, accepted for over three decades, it occurs in a cold phase. This leads to distinct differences in the history of the early Universe and present-day observational signatures.
For over the two decades since warm inflation was suggested by Arjun Berera, experts in the fields of cosmology and particle physics have regarded it as almost impossible to realize this idea in a simple first principles model. This paper has confounded these expectations and developed a simple and compelling first principles model of warm inflation. This now provides a solid theoretical foundation to an alternative paradigm for the early Universe, which shows excellent agreement with large scale observational data (see figure below).
In standard inflation, any preexisting radiation is stretched and dispersed during a brief cosmic phase and no new radiation is produced. The Universe’s temperature plummets by several orders of magnitude, and an ensuing reheating period fills the Universe with radiation again. Warm inflation is simpler. New radiation is constantly produced by the decay of the scalar field that triggers inflation, the inflaton; the temperature remains large; and there is no reheating phase. Ironically, however, models of warm inflation have so far required thousands of additional fields to be coupled to the inflaton to avoid large corrections to its mass.
This paper treats the field driving inflation as a pseudo Nambu-Goldstone boson of a broken gauge symmetry and its mass is naturally protected against large quantum and thermal corrections. The model is similar to the Little Higgs mechanism for electroweak symmetry breaking. Using this idea Berera and colleagues built a model involving only four additional fields and no mass corrections. The researchers then compared the model’s observational predictions with constraints on inflation derived from Planck satellite measurements of the cosmic microwave background radiation and found good agreement between the two. The presence of radiation during inflation has been known from very earlier work by Berera and colleagues to lower the tensor-scalar ratio. This model realises this result in a compelling first principles model, thus accommodates the possibility for a tensor mode anywhere from the present upper bound to a value extremely below that.
The latest research is published in Physical Review Letters and was highlighted by the journal as an Editors' Suggestion, which recognises its important contribution to the field.
On Saturday 26th September the School took part in Door Open Day with two popular exhibits and a successful recruitment day.
Institute for Condensed Matter and Complex Systems once again threw open the doors to its laboratories for Doors Open Day 2016. Visitors were able to see how complex fluids are studied using rheology, watch food based capsules being made and see the group’s new confocal microscope in action. In the foyer, younger visitors made slime and lava lamps, learning about non newtonian fluids and interfacial phenomena. A popular favourite, a large bucket of corn flour in water dramatically illustrated shear thickening. Well away from the corn starch, highlighted the biophysics research of the group, including an interactive simulation of bacterial population dynamics. A team of 12 PhD students and postdocs from the ICMCS ran the event and talked enthusiastically to visitors about their work.
PP4SS (Particle Physics for Scottish Schools) had successful display in the JCMB cafe with good in visitor numbers.
A new experiment carried out in the underground Gran Sasso Laboratory of the Italian National Institute for Nuclear Physics (INFN) could help scientists uncover the origin of some rare elements in the universe.
Nuclear fusion reactions provide the source of energy that makes stars shine. Like gigantic alchemists of the cosmos, they also create new elements from the hydrogen and helium left over by the Big Bang.
Understanding the complex pattern of reactions that leads to the abundances of elements and isotopes that we observe today requires detailed models of stellar evolution and extensive laboratory experiments on individual nuclear reactions. For some time, astronomers have been puzzled by anomalous abundances of rare isotopes of carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen in the atmospheres of some stars and in tiny grains that reach the Earth inside meteorites. In particular, the amount of oxygen-17 – a rare, heavier form of the oxygen we breathe – observed in some red giants and massive stars can provide important clues on the mixing processes that occur inside these stars and bring to their surfaces the debris of nuclear reactions. By measuring the tiny particles released by the fusion of hydrogen and oxygen-17, the study – published in the journal Physical Review Letters – reveals that oxygen-17 is destroyed twice as fast as previously expected: a result that may help reconcile the puzzling abundances observed in stellar atmospheres and stardust grains.
The experiment, which took place at the LUNA (Laboratory for Underground Nuclear Astrophysics) accelerator of the Gran Sasso Laboratory, detected the feeble signals of the fusion reaction with unprecedented precision. Such studies can only be performed in the absence of radiation from space, and the shielding provided by the 1.4km of rock under the Gran Sasso mountain is ideal to suppress the background induced by cosmic rays.
LUNA is an international collaboration of about 40 scientists from the INFN (Italy), the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (Germany), MTA-ATOMKI (Hungary) and the School of Physics and Astronomy of the University of Edinburgh (UK).
The UK team, led by Professor Marialuisa Aliotta, played a key role in the planning and execution of the experiment and provided the detectors and related instrumentation.
An international team of astronomers, led by Edinburgh, has gained a new view of the evolution of distant galaxies. Their study focuses on a region of the Universe previously studied using the deepest observations of the Hubble Space Telescope.
The team has traced the previously unknown abundance of star-forming gas and dust over cosmic time. This provides new insights into what is known as the golden age of galaxy formation - approximately 10 billion years ago. The new observations of a well-studied area of sky, known as the Hubble Ultra Deep Field, were taken with the ALMA (Atacama Large Millimetre/submillimetre Array) telescope, located high in the Atacama Desert in Chile. The resulting images are significantly deeper and sharper than those from previous surveys undertaken at these long wavelengths. Astronomers have used their findings to show for the first time how the rate of star formation in young galaxies is closely related to their total mass in stars, which is assembled from previous star-formation events.
The findings will be published in in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
The first Hubble Ultra Deep Field images, pioneering deep-field observations at optical wavelengths, were captured with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope and published in 2004. Hubble was refurbished in 2009 and since then, it has captured near-infrared images. The result is the deepest view of the Universe to achieved date, revealing early galaxies that existed less than a billion years after the Big Bang. However, Hubble cannot reveal the emission from young stars that is absorbed and then re-emitted by clouds of interstellar gas and dust, within which the youngest stars form. To do this, astronomers have had to await the advent of ALMA, which for the first time enables the warm glow of dust-enshrouded star-formation activity to be imaged with a depth and clarity comparable to Hubble imaging. The team, led by the University of Edinburgh, used ALMA to obtain the first deep, homogeneous image of the entire Hubble Ultra Deep Field region. This enabled them to clearly match the galaxies detected by ALMA with objects already known from the Hubble imaging. This showed clearly, for the first time, that the mass of stars already existing within a galaxy is the best indicator of how quickly stars are forming in the very distant Universe. The team was able to detect virtually all of the high-mass galaxies and very little else.
According to researchers, the new ALMA results imply a rapidly rising gas content in galaxies as we look back further in time. This is likely the root of a remarkable increase in star formation rates during the peak of galaxy formation some 10 billion years ago. The results are the first in a series of planned observations of the distant Universe using ALMA. Astronomers hope the forthcoming program of surveys will complete their view of the galaxies in the Hubble Ultra Deep Field.
The BBC Horizon Special "Inside Cern" will transmit in the UK on Wednesday 10th August at 8pm on BBC 2.
The film features and interview with Peter Higgs that was recorded in the Kelvin Room at the Royal Society of Edinburgh on Monday 18 July.
The film will also be viewable in the BBC iPlayer after broadcast.
Scientists have refined their search for dark matter with the completion of a sophisticated experiment.
An international team of researchers, including from Edinburgh, has completed a series of tests for dark matter – which is thought to account for more than four-fifths of the Universe – using an underground detector in the US.
Although the experiment did not yield any direct evidence of dark matter, the results have enabled scientists to refine their models for dark matter particles.
It will also inform the next generation of experiments that plan to further the search for the material.
Long-term testing
The Large Underground Xenon (LUX) dark matter experiment, at the Sanford Underground Research Facility in the Black Hills of South Dakota, has been operating a series of experiments over the past three years.
The experiment was designed to look for so-called weakly interacting massive particles, or WIMPs, which scientists believe are the most likely fit for a dark matter particle.
Their interaction with ordinary matter is expected to be very faint and difficult to detect.
Sensitive detector
LUX consists of a large tank of cooled liquid xenon surrounded by powerful sensors.
These are designed to detect the tiny flash of light and electrical charge emitted if a WIMP collides with a xenon atom in the tank.
Radiation that might interfere with a dark matter signal, such as cosmic rays, are kept out by the detector’s location a mile underground.
The detector’s extreme sensitivity ensures that if dark matter particles had interacted with the xenon target, the detector would almost certainly have seen it.
Hard-to-reach
Dark matter is thought to account for more than four-fifths of the mass in the universe.
Scientists are confident of its existence because its effects can be seen in the behaviour of galaxies and in the way light bends as it travels through the universe. However, experiments have yet to find a dark matter particle.
The latest results are from the detector’s final 20-month run, which is one of the largest experiments of its type.
Analysis of nearly a half-million gigabytes of data from the detector made use of advanced computer facilities.
Next steps
Future experiments will include the LUX-ZEPLIN (LZ) experiment, which will replace LUX at the Sanford Underground Research Facility.
LZ will have a larger liquid xenon capacity than LUX, to help fend off external radiation.
The LUX scientific collaboration, which is supported by the DOE and National Science Foundation (NSF), includes 20 research universities and national laboratories in the US, UK and Portugal.
"These latest findings about what dark matter is, and what it isn’t, are the best yet, and will help improve the next generation of experiments to detect this elusive substance." Prof. Alex Murphy, Professor of Nuclear & Particle Astrophysics, School of Physics & Astronomy
The UK Centre for Astrobiology (UKCA) has concluded its fourth MINAR campaign in the 1.1 km-deep Boulby Mine.
MINAR (Mine Analogue Research), is a programme that was set up by UKCA to test planetary science instrumentation and technology for space missions that might also have technology transfer potential for the mining industry. This year the fourth MINAR campaign focused on addressing the science question of whether ancient biosignatures of life could be detected in the 250-million-year-old Permian salt in which the Boulby mine operates.
Groups from the Spanish Centre for Astrobiology, NASA, The European Science Foundation, the University of Madrid and the University of Leicester joined the campaign which ran for three days. Work included drilling for ancient salts and testing an immunoassay instrument (SOLID) developed by the Spanish Centre for Astrobiology for searching for organics on Mars, as well as new commercially available microscopy methods.
UK Centre for Astrobiology
UKCA's mission is to advance knowledge of molecules and life in extreme environments on the Earth and beyond to further our understanding of planetary habitability. It does this with a combination of theoretical, laboratory, field and mission approaches. We apply this knowledge to improving the quality of life on Earth and developing space exploration as two mutually enhancing objectives. The UK Centre for Astrobiology is based at the University of Edinburgh and is affiliated to the NASA Astrobiology Institute.
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Edinburgh hosted the fourth year of the Astrobiology Academy. This continuing professional development event, set up by the UK Centre for Astrobiology, takes astrobiology into secondary schools and uses the subject to teach fundamental science.
Since its foundation, the Astrobiology Academy has produced lesson plans for UK secondary schools that this year were assembled into astrobiology units for year-long teaching blocks. The Academy's lesson plans have been downloaded over 5000 times by teachers and cover subjects from astronomy to biology.
This year 13 teachers came to Edinburgh to listen to astrobiology lectures, write lesson plans and gain expertise in teaching the subject. The academy was supported by the National Space Centre and was attended by Susan Buckle of the UK Space Agency.
Next year the academy will offer one day astrobiology continuing professional development events as well as its residential course, and will extend astrobiology teacher-training to primary school teachers.
Who can attend?
The Astrobiology Academy is open to science teachers and anyone with a science/technology background and good writing skills who are enthusiastic and self-motivated with interests in the fields of chemistry, biology, physics, geology, astronomy or engineering. Applicants are expected to work together to create and edit astrobiology-based lesson plans for secondary schools. If you are excited by the idea of this science opportunity then register your interest for 2017 now!
More information and lesson plans can be found at www.astrobiologyacademy.org
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School staff have taken part in several science outreach events this summer.
Royal Society summer science exhibition
Members of the LHCb group within experimental particle physics helped to organise the “Antimatter matters” exhibit at the Royal Society summer science exhibition from 4-10th July this year.
We know that matter and antimatter were produced in equal amounts during the Big Bang, but now everything we see in the Universe (stars, planets, dust) appears to be made of matter. Understanding where all of the antimatter has gone is one of the key unanswered questions of science. The exhibit aimed to explain how the properties of antimatter are being studied in detail by the LHCb and ALPHA experiments at CERN, the European laboratory for particle physics. Both experiments are making precision measurements to search for differences between matter and antimatter that might help explain the large asymmetry we observe in the Universe.
Dr Greig Cowan, STFC Ernest Rutherford research fellow and member of the LHCb collaboration, edited and produced the exhibit booklet as well as demonstrating at the event, both during the public sessions and at one of the black tie “soirées” for fellows and guests of the Royal Society.
"It was great to see so many people at the event interested in science and particle physics in particular.” Dr Greig Cowan
You can see more details of the exhibit at the website, as well as other photos and videos on Twitter and Facebook. See links below.
Heavy flavours on Islay
Members of the Edinburgh particle physics group took part in a week of physics meetings and public outreach on Islay. From 10-14th July, the Edinburgh group hosted the “Heavy Flavour 2016 - Quo Vadis?” workshop in the Ardbeg distillery on Islay, where the topic of discussion was the future direction of research for heavy flavour physics, so-called as it involves the study of the heavy beauty and charm quarks that are produced in large numbers at the CERN Large Hadron Collider. Around 30 participants attended the workshop.
"With so many new measurements from the Large Hadron Collider and many more expected during the next decade, it is time to reflect. At this workshop speakers were asked to discuss the future of heavy flavour physics and Islay provided an excellent venue for this, as both the topic and the location involved heavy flavours, beauty and charm." Prof Franz Muheim, who currently holds a Senior Experimental Fellowship from the Institute for Particle Physics Phenomenology (IPPP) at Durham University which provided funds for this workshop.
“It has been a long-term goal for us to have a focussed workshop in a remote location to allow us to discuss the latest developments and future directions of heavy flavour physics. Islay was the perfect choice, not least because of it’ own local “heavy flavoured” spirits." Dr Greig Cowan, STFC Ernest Rutherford research fellow.
Particle Physics for Scottish Schools go to Islay
In parallel with the workshop the group organised a series of public outreach events at Islay High School together with Dr Alan Walker, Director of Particle Physics for Scottish Schools (PP4SS), and the local Science teacher, Russell Pollock. This comprised three joint exhibitions: Particle Physics for Scottish Schools Exhibition, From Higgs to Maxwell Exhibition (Royal Society Edinburgh) and I-SAT: Islay Space and Astronomy Tour.
For PP4SS, this is the third visit to the Scottish Highlands and Islands in as many years, after a very successful series of events in Plockton in 2014 and the Orkney International Science Festival in 2015. The PP4SS exhibition, which was mainly developed with funding from a Science and Society Large Award from the former Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council, includes several hands-on exhibits demonstrating the working of particle accelerators and experimental detectors. It also outlines the key areas in particle physics research and The University of Edinburgh's involvement in these efforts. Assisted by experienced demonstrators, the visitors were able to walk through a Cosmic Ray Doorway, drive the CERN's LHC accelerator, determine experimentally the life-time of the muon a fundamental particles, and observe particle tracks in a cloud chamber and much more.
"We are very pleased to yet again visit a more remote Scottish community and talk to local people about particle physics and how such cutting-edge research affect all our daily lives. We are in particular proud of meeting many young people, who may later on decide to study physics and become researchers themselves. Quite often they say visiting our exhibition was a contributing factor in making such choices." Alan Walker, Director of PP4SS
Islay Space & Astronomy Tour
Islay Space and Astronomy Tour (I-SAT), is a new invited project by Matjaz Vidmar, our school's alumni of and currently a PhD student in Science, Technology and Innovation Studies, also at the University of Edinburgh. Matjaz is often involved in outreach events and for this occasion he developed an interactive display related to his research, which concerns the applications of basic research and innovation partnerships between scientists and local entrepreneurs in the Space Industry in Scotland.
"It was a privilege to be part of the particle physics outreach activities again and I believe these initiatives are absolutely vital for inspiring high school students in remote parts of Scotland to consider science as their future careers." Matjaz Vidmar, who received an Institute of Physics in Scotland Public Engagement Grant to enable his participation
The series of events also included a public session with presentations by Professor Franz Muheim on "Higgs Bosons, Antimatter and all that" and Matjaz Vidmar on "Astrotechnology - and how it changed the World", which was well attended by the local community.
The Particle Physics Experiments (PPE) group and PP4SS project are very grateful for the work put into supporting this outreach event by Brian Cameron of the School of Geosciences and our dedicated volunteers Dr Konstantina Zerva, Alice Morris and Julija Pustovrh, and for the generous hospitality of the Islay High School, Bowmore.
