Recent Outreach Activities

• Warwick is one of the top research environments in the UK for Physics (ranked 7^th), with all aspects considered to be conducive to producing either world-leading or internationally excellent research. This reflects the quality of facilities and infrastructure available to our researchers, and the supportive and inclusive working environment as demonstrated by our commitment to Juno/Athena Swan.
• 96.5% of our research papers submitted to REF2021 were judged to be at least "internationally excellent" (3* or 4*) and 45% (compared to 24% in REF2014) were "world-leading" (4*). This reflects the breadth and strength of research across our six research clusters.
• All our six impact case studies were considered to be either outstanding or very considerable in terms of their reach and significance.
• Warwick Physics is ranked 8^th for “research power” in the Times Higher Education REF2021 table. Research Power is a measure of the quality of our research multiplied by the number of researchers in the department. This is an excellent result.

Full results are published on the REF website.

Find out more on the University's REF results.

Congratulations to Elizabeth Sharp who was awarded first prize for her presentation at the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) PhD seminar in Manchester on Tuesday 29^th March. Elizabeth's work focuses on using non-contact ultrasonic transducers to excite and then measure the resonant frequencies of metal containers that hold special nuclear materials, in order to measure changes internal pressure changes that can arise as a result of various chemical and nuclear reactions of the contents whilst the containers are in long term storage. There is a risk that in certain situations a build up of pressure in a container could cause the container to fail. Currently, the best approach that the industry have is to try and detect deformation of the cans by optical means, which can be difficult and is not particularly sensitive at early stages of pressurisation. Elizabeth has designed and manufactured sensors and developed instrumentation for performing measurements on these types of containers (filled with inert material to simulate the real content mass and density). She has performed a range of experiments and finite element simulations that confirm the characteristics of the detected resonant modes are she has shown how measuring changes in resonant mode behaviour can be used to obtain quantitative information on the internal pressure of the can. The NDA and Sellafield are interested in taking this technology further, with a view to deployment in nuclear material storage facilities in the longer term.

Dr John Marshall and Dr John Back are working as part of the AIDAinnova programme to further the development of the Pandora pattern-recognition software. They are developing algorithms to interpret highly-complex images of neutrino interactions in the detectors that will be deployed for the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment, DUNE. Their software uses a careful blend of sophisticated clustering algorithms and machine-learning approaches.

The Pandora software aims to provide an automated approach to reconstruct what happened in neutrino interactions, and so help unlock the mysteries of neutrinos. One of the defining features of DUNE will be its cutting-edge detectors, and the role of pattern recognition and machine learning is becoming more important to interpret the detector outputs. Under the AIDAinnova programme, Dr Marshall and Dr Back are adapting the Pandora software specifically for use at the DUNE Near Detector.

Dr Marshall says “Through AIDAinnova, we’re collaborating with other teams across Europe: to develop software for future detectors, and to help include the Pandora software in a reusable “turnkey” software stack, designed for easy use at future particle physics experiments.”

AIDAinnova is co-ordinated through CERN. The U.S. Department of Energy’s Fermilab is the host laboratory for DUNE, in partnership with funding agencies and more than 1,000 scientists from all over the globe.

Find out more about AIDAinnova project by watching The AIDAinnova project video.  

25 April 2022.