Miriam Watson is a member of the ATLAS collaboration at the Large Hadron Collider. Her current research involves studying the properties of the top quark, the heaviest of the known fundamental particles. One such property is the correlation between the spins of the top quark and its antiparticle, the top anti-quark. Deviations from the expected result could indicate new physics processes, such as supersymmetry, or new exotic particles.
Miriam previously studied charm and bottom hadrons at ATLAS, including charm meson cross-sections and quarkonium production (bound states of charm or bottom quark-antiquark pairs). She analysed the production of J/psi states in association with Z bosons: a very rare process, which is sensitive to the behaviour of the strong interaction in heavy quark bound states. During this time, she co-ordinated ATLAS working groups on quarkonium physics and the hadronic decays of heavy flavour states.
Prior to joining ATLAS, Miriam worked on the OPAL experiment at LEP and studied the strong interaction (QCD) and W boson physics. After taking a career break, she returned to academia on a Daphne Jackson Fellowship and was then awarded a Royal Society Dorothy Hodgkin Fellowship. She is now a University Senior Lecturer.