PhD Studentship on DUNE Neutrino Experiment (2021)

What you get

• Fully-paid tuition fees for three and a half years
  
• A tax-free bursary for living costs for three and a half years. From October 2021/22 this is expected to be £15560 per year
• A research training support grant for three and a half years of £1,250 per year

Type of award

Postgraduate Research

PhD project

A studentship is available to work with Prof Simon J.M. Peeters on the development of the DUNE neutrino experiment and the study of neutrinos. DUNE is a next generation neutrino experiment planned to start running in the second half of the next decade. A beam of neutrinos will be sent 1,300 km from Fermilab near Chicago to the Stanford Underground Research Facility, in South Dakota. The far detector consists of four Time-Projection Chamber (TPC) modules, using 40 ktonnes of liquid argon as a neutrino target. This allows to measure the products of neutrino interactions in great detail. The primarily physics goal of the experiment is to understand if the matter-antimatter asymmetry of the Universe is due to CP violation in the neutrino sector. The detector is also able to observe a range of astrophysical neutrinos (e.g. from supernovae, the Sun, or dark matter annihilation). Projects in this area will be focussed on data acquisition, detector simulation, and low-energy neutrinos (as these will be the most challenging to detect). There will be the opportunity to become involved in testbeam activities, such as protoDUNE at CERN.

Eligibility

• Open to students from the UK, EU and Overseas.
• If you are not a UK national, nor an EU national with settled/pre-settled status in the UK, you may need to apply for a student study visa before admission.     
• hold or expect to hold a UK upper second-class degree (or non-UK equivalent) in Physics or a closely-related area, or else a lower second-class degree followed by a relevant Master's degree

We also welcome applications from independently-funded students interested in our experimental programme.

 

Deadline

30 March 2021 11:00

How to apply

Apply online at https://www.sussex.ac.uk/study/phd/apply/log-into-account

Select the PhD in Physics with a September 2021 start date.

State in the Finance & Funding section that you are applying for the STFC EPP studentship no. STFC/EPP/2020/04, “DUNE Neutrino”

To be considered for more than one of our STFC EPP positions, include the studentship number(s) from our other advertisements in the Finance & Funding section.

Be sure to supply all of the required documents, particularly your transcripts and the details of two referees.

Due to the high volume of applications received, you may only hear from us if your application is successful.

Contact us

If you have practical questions about the progress of your applications or your eligibility, contact Emma Ransley at mps-pgrsupport@sussex.ac.uk

For academic questions contact [ the coordinator of STFC EPP PhD admissions, Dr. W. Clark Griffith: W.C.Griffith@sussex.ac.uk or the supervisor of this project, Professor Simon J.M.Peeters, S.J.M.Peeters@sussex.ac.uk 

http://www.sussex.ac.uk/epp/

Timetable

The position will be filled as soon as a suitable candidate is found so early application is advised. 

Interviews of shortlisted candidates will be held in February and March initially and will continue until the position is filled.