The College of Science and Engineering at the University of Derby has an opportunity for a full-time postgraduate research studentship in High-Energy Nuclear Physics.

The successful applicant will receive a tax-free stipend of £16,062 per annum and will have access to funds for necessary travel and essential equipment from a grant funded by UKRI Science and Facilities Research Council (STFC). The post also covers Home MPhil/PhD tuition fees for three years. Please note, if your application is successful and you are assessed as Overseas for fees purposes, you will need to pay the difference between the Home fees and the Overseas fees.

The intended intake period is the end of September 2022 which is a firm deadline due to funding constraints. The successful applicant will be expected to complete their MPhil/PhD within three/four years on the MPhil/PhD route and get involved in the wider research activities of the College.

The STFC-funded project involves analysis of data from the A Large Ion Collider Experiment (ALICE) at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC) which will shortly resume operation.

The student will work on exploiting the data collected in LHC Run 3, potentially concentrating on the analysis of heavy-flavour baryons. As the distribution of charm quarks among the various charmed hadron species is clearly different in hadronic collisions to that observed in e+e- collisions, it provides a strong motivation for measuring further channels to get a more complete picture. The student will analyse direct measurements of the Ξc (u/dsc) baryon decays in their hadronic decay channels. These include decays to Ξ that can be reconstructed using the capabilities of the upgraded inner tracking system (ITS2) to improve precision and resolve ambiguities arising from the continuous readout mode of the time projection chamber (TPC). There is also the opportunity to work on the physics performance studies for the next generation inner tracker (ITS3) or on algorithmic improvements to the analysis gained by employing machine learning techniques, according to the candidate's interests.

The applicant will become part of a friendly and welcoming team, led by Associate Professor Lee Barnby, working in close collaboration with project partners at STFC Daresbury Laboratory and the University of Liverpool. The applicant will be supported and managed by their supervisors and there is also the opportunity to further collaborate within the University of Derby’s Data Science Research Centre.

Please email for informal enquires and use the information at the link provided to apply through the university admission system. In this case a detailed project proposal is not needed since this is a funded position tied to a specific grant.

A note on funding: the difference between the Home fee level and the EU/International fee level is not covered by the studentship. It is currently over £9000 per year so a candidate would need sponsorship or another source of funds. It is not advised to use the bursary, which is intended to cover living costs in the UK.