Particle Physics and Cosmology Research Group

Group Overview

The Particle Physics and Cosmology Theory (PPCT) group, which is part of the Department of Physics at Swansea University, conducts research in theoretical and computational particle physics and cosmology, with the aim to uncover the most fundamental description of matter and forces at the smallest length scales, including the true nature of gravity, the origin and evolution of the Universe, and the behaviour of the basic building blocks of matter under extreme conditions.

Its main areas of research are quantum fields and strings, lattice field theory, hadron physics, physics beyond the Standard Model and theoretical cosmology.

Professor David Olive

Distinguished Lecture Series

The PPCT group has enjoyed continuous support from the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) since its foundation in 1993, via a Consolidated Grant. Additional support has come from the Royal Society, the Leverhulme Trust, the Wolfson Foundation, EPSRC, and the EU.

Affiliated Staff

Postdoctoral researchers:

Dr. Amr Ahmadain
Dr. Peter Weck
Dr. Fabian Zierler
Dr. Antonio Smecca
Dr. Matteo Favoni
Dr. Ameek Malhotra

Collaborative / Industry Partners

The PPCT group has an extensive list of contacts with industrial partners, mostly in the context of Supercomputing Wales, the UKRI Centre for Doctoral Training in Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning and Advanced Computing and the STFC Centre for Doctoral Training in Data-Intensive Science. Details are available from Prof Simon Hands (s.hands@swan.ac.uk) or Prof Biagio Lucini (b.lucini@swan.ac.uk).

Networks

The PPCT group is part of a number of research and postgraduate teaching networks:

STFC Centre for Doctoral Training in Data-Intensive Science (Cardiff, Bristol, Swansea universities) https://www.cardiff.ac.uk/data-innovation-research-institute/study/centre-for-doctoral-training

Europlex: European network for Particle physics, Lattice field theory and Extreme computing
http://europlex.unipr.it/

EU COST network THOR: Theory of hot matter and relativistic heavy-ion collisions
https://thor-cost.eu/

Lisa Consortium, including the Cosmology and the Fundamental Physics Working groups
https://www.lisamission.org/

Facilities

Computational research in the area of lattice field theory is supported by the STFC funded integrated supercomputing facility DiRAC https://dirac.ac.uk/, the national supercomputing research facility for Wales, Supercomputing Wales https://www.supercomputing.wales/, and the Swansea Academy for Advanced Computing SA²C https://www.swansea.ac.uk/iss/sa2c/.

Collaborative / Engagement Opportunities

The PPCT group has an extensive public engagement programme:

Annual Particle Physics Masterclasses are run in the spring and are aimed at AS (Year 12) pupils. For details, please contact Roz Toft. Information on this year's Particle Physics Masterclass can be found here.

Oriel Science is a research-led, hands-on science centre, designed for all ages. See http://orielscience.co.uk/.

PPCT members have ample experience in the media and feature frequently on e.g. BBC Radio Wales Science Café and also organise regular one-off outreach events, such as Dark Matter Day and Gravitational Waves Day. Please contact the group for more details.

Publications

Publications from PPCT group members are available from inSPIRE, see

http://inspirehep.net/search?ln=en&p=f+aff+swansea&of=hb&action_search=Search&sf=earliestdate&so=d

Group Contact

Head of the PPCT group: Prof Gert Aarts g.aarts@swan.ac.uk