Physics Department News

I have to report the very sad news that Professor John Forty, the founding professor of the Department of Physics, passed away on Sunday 14th May aged 94.

The leading position that the Department holds today is due, in no small measure, to the vision and leadership that John showed in setting up the Department in the 1960s, from his choice of staff and their research areas to the design of a building that has remained "fit for purpose" for many decades, despite the many changes in use that have occurred.

More information will be provided when available.

Mark Newton
Head of Department

The worldwide COVID pandemic was a crisis unparalleled in recent history. The efforts of scientists and researchers around the world in mobilising to find vaccines, treatments, and explanations were equally unparalleled. In this article, we tell the story of one such research collaboration using their collective expertise in protein-modelling to help build a picture of the SARS-CoV-2 virus structure. Moreover, using modern collaborative writing tools, they were able to write up and publish their work during the height of the pandemic.

Congratulations to Dr Karolos Potamianos who has been awarded £287,845 from Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) for a research project titled 'Expanding the timing frontier: precision timing for particle tracking and identification.'

The funding will permit the procurement of a 12 GHz signal generator, a fast oscilloscope (<8ps per sample), and a logic analyser. These will enable the proper characterisation of ultra-fast silicon detectors and associated readout at realistic operating conditions, in particular enabling precise measurements of their (ultra-fast) response signals.

The research will be led by Dr Karolos Potamianos. He said,

"The use of fast silicon in collider detectors offers many new opportunities, as high-precision timing information enables distinguish between collisions occurring very close in space but well-separated in time. This will greatly help mitigate the effect of overlapping proton-proton interactions (pileup) at the High-Luminosity LHC. It is thus essential that we can properly characterise these detectors, which the procured equipment will enable. However, challenges such as ensuring proper operation of the detectors in a tough radiation environment and that sufficient bandwidth is available to transfer data out of the detector remain to make these detectors a reality at the LHC.”

Undergraduate student, Phoebe Ryder attended the World Congress on Undergraduate Research (WorldCUR) which took place at the University of Warwick campus in early April. The WorldCUR brings together the world's best undergraduate researchers to focus on some of the most significant challenges facing the global community. The students attending are invited to share their research, discuss global issues, and create or strengthen international research partnerships.

Phoebe, a third year Physics with Astrophysics student, presented her poster on the characterisation of a binary star system that was identified as a possible supernova progenitor, with the aim of finding out whether the system had sufficient combined mass to go supernova. She said,

"It was an amazing opportunity to meet students from around the globe. There was a vast range of research being showcased and it was really inspiring and encouraging to hear others at the same educational stage to myself talk so passionately about their own research. Everyone I met was really supportive and I feel I have gained a lot of confidence in my presentation skills from the experience. Also, presenting my research to people with a wide range of previous knowledge on astrophysics, but the same enthusiasm to learn, allowed me to practice presenting to many different types of audiences.

I have learned so much from all the other delegates, about their own research and their presentation styles and techniques. I also learnt a lot from the keynote speaker, Professor Sir David Spiegelhalter's presentation. He was sharing advice on how best to communicate your research to a variety of audiences, particularly his thoughts on how to simplify your research to convey the gist without losing accuracy."