Particle Physics
The main activities of the group are based at the CERN laboratory. We have a central involvement in the ATLAS experiment at the LHC, where we are characterising the Higgs boson, investigating top-quark and multi-boson signatures and studying processes in which one or both of the protons remains intact. We are testing lepton universality and investigating rare baryon decays at the LHCb experiment. We lead searches for new physics in quantum loops via measurements of ultra-rare kaon decays at the NA62 experiment. We are involved in direct searches for dark matter through preparations for WIMP searches at the Darkside-20k liquid argon experiment and through novel application of spherical proportional counters with NEWS-G. Our interests in future collider facilities are helping to shape the future of the field. Most immediately, in collaboration with the Nuclear Physics group, we are working towards the US Electron-Ion Collider which will begin probing the structure of matter in the early 2030s.
Our BILPA instrumentation laboratory is playing a major role in the upgrade programme of the ATLAS experiment and R&D into next-generation sensors and instrumentation for hadron therapy. We have extensive capabilities for the design, construction and firmware development of state-of-the-art trigger and data acquisition systems. We host a GridPP site as part of the worldwide LHC distributed computing network.
Nuclear Physics
Researching properties of nuclei and their constituents using radioactive beams, laser spectroscopy and ultra-relativistic heavy-ion collisions.