PhD studentship on future accelerator technologies (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 £15609 per year
• A support grant for three and a half years of £1250 per year for travel and conferences
• If you are not a UK national, nor an EU national with UK settled/pre-settled status, you will need to apply for a student study visa before admission

Type of award

Postgraduate Research

PhD project

The search for new physics beyond the standard model has so far yielded no evidence and experimental particle physicists are preparing for the next generation of discovery machines. Taking advantage of these machines requires novel developments both in the discovery approach and in the detector technology supporting such searches.

The aim of this research project will be primarily investigating the use of Machine Learning techniques implemented on commercial FPGA accelerators to address the data processing and acquisition challenges of detectors at the next generation of particle physics experiments.

All future accelerator scenarios (ranging from “classical” high-energy proton-proton and electron-positron machines to the extraordinary paradigm shift of muon colliders) will in most cases swamp the next generation of particle detectors with extraordinary amounts of charged particles. A central use case of the novel data processing techniques will be the reconstruction of particle trajectories in difficult environments: a pivotal challenge which well fits the emerging programmable technologies for computing acceleration.

A variety of approaches will be possible: from the application to present experiments (e.g. ATLAS) to the study of extreme collision environments such as HL-LHC, FCC and muon colliders. A fraction of the project will be devoted to the study of the physics potential of such environments, e.g. in the investigation of new phenomena related to Lepton Flavour Universality violation, with the possibility of employing present and future ATLAS detector data in an initial measurement and/or proof of principle.

Eligibility

Applicants must hold, or expect to hold, at least a UK upper second class degree (or non-UK equivalent qualification) in Physics, or a closely-related area, or else a lower second class degree followed by a relevant Master's degree.

This award is open to UK and International students.

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

Deadline

4 May 2021 16:24

How to apply

Apply through the University of Sussex on-line system. 

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

Select the PhD in Physics, with an entry date of September 2021.

In the Finance & Fees section, state that you wish to be considered for studentship no STFC/EPP/2021/08.

We advise early application as the position will be filled as soon as a suitable applicant can be found.

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 on-line application or your eligibility, contact Emma Ransley at mps-pgrsupport@sussex.ac.uk

For more details about the project, please contact Prof. Alessandro Cerri A.Cerri@sussex.ac.uk)

For academic questions please contact the coordinator of EPP PhD admissions, Dr. W. Clark Griffith: W.C.Griffith@sussex.ac.uk