Application deadline: 31st January 2010

All shortlisted candidates will be invited to Edinburgh on 17th February for interview.

This is a unique time to study particle physics. The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN in Geneva, Switzerland has just produced its first physics collisions this year (2009) after 15 years of design and construction! The LHC provides exciting prospects for Higgs boson searches, precision measurements of flavour physics - and maybe even the discovery of new physics beyond the Standard Model. Data from the LHC may completely reshape our current model of particle physics. Staff from The University of Edinburgh collaborate on two of the experiments at the LHC: ATLAS and LHCb.

We are looking for prospective PhD students to collaborate on two these projects. We also have projects on detector development (for the LHC and beyond), on LHC data storgage and distributed computing, and to work in collaboration with our theoretical colleagues on understanding LHC physics.

We have three fully-funded STFC studentships (for UK nationals and UK-based students). We welcome applicants who already hold a scholarship, and also to students who wish to apply for a PhD place in conjunction with a scholarship application. Most projects include an opportunity for a long-term attachment to CERN for one year, or longer.

More details about our PhD projects and funding opportunities are given below.

PhD Projects

High energy frontier physics at ATLAS

Supervisors: P. Clark and V. Martin

The Atlas experiment at the Large Hardon Collider at CERN, due to start taking data in November 2009, will provide a very rich experimental physics programme, which may change fundamentally our understanding of Particle Physics. In particular, 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 help run the ATLAS experiment, by contributing to the maintenance and monitoring of the detector and/or software, and study data taken by ATLAS with the aim of testing the Standard Model predictions or looking for new physics. The ATLAS detector is sophisticated and complex and will produce a large amount of data, so part of the project could involve working with state of the art data acquisition systems and distributed computer software.

Flavour physics at LHCb

Supervisors: F. Muheim, S. Playfer, P. Clarke

The LHCb experiment at the LHC also starts taking data in November 2009. LHCb will test the flavour sector of Standard Model with a new level of precision. Massive numbers of hadrons containing bottom and charm quarks will be produced and dectected using specialised, state-of-the art detectors. We are primarily interested in determining the phases of B-Bbar mixing from measurements of time-dependent CP violation. These measurements constrain fundamental parameters in the Standard Model CKM matrix and are sensitive to new physics through loop-induced contributions. Students will also have opportunities to work on measurements of the Bs lifetime difference, or to explore rare flavour-changing neutral current decays such as Bs->phiphi and Bs->phimumu. Here, also, new physics effects may appear and have a significant effect.

Research and design of future particle physics detectors

Supervisors: F. Muheim, P. Clark and S. Eisenhardt

Particle physics uses many novel techniques in its detectors. Almost all new detectors push the forefront of technology in one way or the other. Either through a new technology, or using an existing technology for something for which it wasn't originally designed. The scale, efficiency, sensitivity and radiation hardness of the detectors pose many challenges and some of which result in spin off technology for medicine and industry. We have positions to design, simulate and build new detectors for upgrading of the LHC detectors and for future linear colliders.

Physics at the LHC: Experiment and Theory

Supervisors: A. Buckley, P. Clark, V. Martin (PPE); R. D. Ball, T. Binoth, L. Del Debbio (PPT)

A full understanding of the physics at the LHC energy scales may only be achieved by studying both the underlying theory, and its phenomenology, and by examining the experimental data. To facilitate this, we are looking for students who wish to work across the traditional boundary between particle physics theory and experiment. Students will be co-supervised by a theorist and an experimentalist. Students will work on LHC phenomenology, work on the ATLAS experiment (or LHCb experiment) and study early LHC data in order to test and refine their theoretical work. Students could choose to work in QCD studies - which is the first step to understanding LHC data, in Higgs physics - studying either the signal or background processes, on flavour physics or in physics beyond the Standard Model.

Training

Postgraduate students attend a comprehensive set of graduate level courses within our SUPA graduate school. See here for the timetable of the current courses
Students can also take a wide variety of courses from the undergraduate programme to supplement their knowledge.
Organised by NeSC there are a variety of EGEE funded training events available. Many upcoming workshops/meetings are hosted by NeSC.
There are a number of International summer schools and physics workshops,
Data analysis training using advanced statistical techniques,
State of the art particle detector design and development of new technology,
Opportunities to present your results at international conferences,
Additional training at CERN with a variety of short trips & long trips (12-18 months).

Eligibility

Academic

Candidates should hold, or expect to gain, a 2:1 honours degree in Physics or related subject (alternatively you can hold a 2:2 degree + Masters degree).
It is essential to have a keen interest in physics data analysis & computing and/or detector technologies.

Financial

We offer a number of funding options dependent upon your country of residence and nationality:

UK resident applicants may be eliglible for STFC funding. Candidates should meet a 3 year UK residency requirement. The criteria (for EU students only) has been relaxed and the 3 year residency requirement can be met by full-time education. For more information please see the STFC eligibility criteria.
- All tuition fees paid,
- Tax free stipend of £13,290 per annum,
- Expenses covered for all trips.
International applicants (including EU) and strong UK candidates should apply for SUPA Prize Studentships (application details below). These are fully funded (fees + stipend).
To enhance your chance of gaining entry (SUPA studentships highly competitive) all applicants should also investigate alternative funding. Here are few examples (please contact us to discuss so we can recommend your best options):
- USA citizens may apply for Marshall scholarships,
- Commonwealth citizens may apply using the Scholarship and Fellowship plan,
- Pakistan citizens can apply to the Higher Education Commission,
- Anyone can apply for a Chevening scholarship and/or a SOSRAS award. There are many similar scholarships. For your particular citizenship here is a useful search tool.
Self-funded applicants (of any nationality) are welcome, provided they are able to show evidence of sufficient funding (EU nationals may have their fees waived, and are only required to cover their living expenses). There is some other useful information here on cost of living and funding information.

To apply

First check your eligibility above to see which funding options are available.

For STFC funded studentships please complete the online application form (may take up to 30 mins to complete) by clicking on the Apply button on the postgraduate entry page. Please note the application states it is for 3 years, even though in reality your PhD course may be funded for 3.5 or 4 years. The form application form is used throughout the University and asks for more information that we need! Please read these helpful application notes. Please ignore the numerous requests for uploads and click through to the application details
- Initially we don't need: degree certificates, transcripts, uploaded references. Referee email addresses are requested later in the process (ignore 'upload references').
- For your research topic feel free to use the one of the above
- Your personal statement can be as brief as you like.
- For relevant knowledge you can mention any project/programming experience.
- If you are shortlisted we will invite you for interview on the 17th February 2010 and cover expenses incurred.
- In case of questions, please contact Jane.Patterson@ed.ac.uk Tel: 44 (0)131 650 5273
(Applications received after the deadline will be considered until all the positions are filled.)
Applications for SUPA prize studentships are now open with a deadline of 31st January 2010. If you would like to apply for one of these prestigious fellowship please get in touch with us first and we will help you put together a coherent research proposal that fits well with the group. Please highlight your strengths and experience clearly in your application.
For other scholarships please see the relevant page and get in touch with us.