X NExT PhD Workshop

29 Mar 2021, 10:00 → 1 Apr 2021, 18:00 Europe/London

Zoom

General information

The X NExT PhD Workshop will take place from 29 March - 1 April 2021. Unfortunately, it has not been possible to hold this event face-to-face, and the workshop will be held virtually using Zoom.

PhD students from all institutes, as well as PDRAs & staff, are welcome to attend, and participation is free of charge.

In normal conditions, this event would have taken place in July last year and would have been compulsory for the year 1 NExT cohort of that time (ie, the PhD students who started in Sep 2019), so this remains the case now. Students who enrolled in Sep 2018 or before are encouraged to attend and so are those who started in Sep 2020, though this second group should be aware that the level of the lectures may be too high for some of them, as they are still undergoing PhD training.  (The XI NExT PhD Workshop in June/July 2021 organised by Sussex, hopefully face-to-face, will be the compulsory event for the Sep 2020 cohort.) 

We are planning an enjoyable event fostering cohort building across NExT and beyond, and between theory and experiment. We are trialling Remo, which is a piece of software which should make participating more friendly, as it features, for example, coffee/tea & dining rooms with tables and chairs, so you get an avatar to go around those starting casual conversations as you would do in a face-to-face situation. This is alongside the standard lecture and breakout room facilities from Zoom. We are planning a brief introductory session for all participants at the beginning of the event to get familiar with this environment.

Fees: Attendance is free of charge. 

Zoom link: All participants will be sent the connection details via email. Logged-in users will also be able to access the details here. Please download the latest Zoom app so you can access all features of the meeting.

Remo link: Remo will be used for informal gatherings during the coffee and lunch breaks. Logged-in users will also be able to access the details here.

Mattermost links: Please follow the Mattermost links to join the workshop team and questions channels.

 

Programme and topics

Topics: BSM Physics, Dark Matter, LHC searches for New Physics, Higher order calculations for the LHC. 

Lecturers: Matthew McCullough (Advances in BSM Physics), Anne Green (Primordial Black Holes as Dark Matter), Caterina Doglioni (LHC searches for New Physics), Jonas Lindert (Precision MC for the LHC).

Student talks: PhD students are encouraged to discuss their research in dedicated sessions of 5-minute talks. There will be prizes for the best talks!

Virtual poster session: Posters will be projected via screen-sharing and discussed in small groups. There will be prizes for the best posters!

SEPnet Employer Panel Session: The SEPnet employer panel is aimed at raising awareness of career opportunities outside academia for physics doctorates. Panel representatives, all with physics or PhD backgrounds, will spend a few minutes outlining their role, what their organisation does, what skills/knowledge they are looking for and why they might be interested in physicists. The panel session will be followed by a Q&A session and an opportunity for students to talk to employers in small groups.

 

Organisers:

Stephen West (Chair), Jacob Linacre.

 

Sponsors: STFC and SEPnet.

Remo instructions

SEPnet Employer Panel Biographical Details.pdf

Monday, 29 March

1 Welcome - Stephen West

welcome.pdf

BSM physics (Matthew McCullough): Lecture 1

Convener: Dr Stephen West (Royal Holloway, University of London)

lecturenotes.pdf

12:00 Lunch

LHC searches (Caterina Doglioni): Lecture 1

Convener: Jacob Thomas Linacre (Science and Technology Facilities Council STFC (GB))

20210329_Doglioni_BSM_NeXT_1.pdf

20210329_Doglioni_BSM_NeXT_2.pdf

20210330_Doglioni_BSM_NeXT_3.pdf

14:30 Coffee break

LHC searches (Caterina Doglioni): Lecture 2

Convener: Nikolas Kauer (Royal Holloway, University of London)

20210329_Doglioni_BSM_NeXT_1.pdf

20210329_Doglioni_BSM_NeXT_2.pdf

20210330_Doglioni_BSM_NeXT_3.pdf

16:30 Quick break

Student Session: Talks (1). Chair: Nourhan Hendawy, with Stefano Moretti.

2 Charting the Fifth Force Landscape

In recent years particle physics research has undergone somewhat of a phase transition, looking increasingly towards hidden sectors and the feebly interacting frontier. In this talk I will introduce a new approach to parameterising dark sector forces, underpinned by the Källén-Lehman representation, in which the effects of any general scalar fifth force are captured by a single positive-definite spectral function. Using this language, I will demonstrate how the effects of loop-level forces can be simply obtained, without needing to explicitly perform loop calculations. I will also show how experimental observables can be expressed in completely general terms, facilitating the straightforward extraction of limits to any specific model. Finally, I will discuss how this framework opens the possibility to speculatively probe violations of unitarity, causality or locality within hidden sectors.

Speaker: Hannah Banks (University of Cambridge)

The Fifth Force Landscape .pdf

3 Quantum Amplitudes and Classical Gravity

I will describe how quantum scattering amplitudes can be employed to compute classical observables in gravity, especially in the context of gravitational wave Physics.

Speaker: Matteo Sergola (University of edinburgh)

nextphd_msergola.pdf

4 Do we really need to fix the gauge?

Speaker: Vlad Mandric (University of Southampton)

Gauge Invariant ERG_X NExT PhD Workshop_March-April 2021.pdf

5 Leading Hadronisation Corrections

I will discuss my work with Andrea Banfi and Basem El-Menoufi on a new method to compute leading hadronisation corrections to two-jet event shapes in e+e- annihilation.

Speaker: Mr Ryan Wood (University of Sussex)

Leading Hadronisation Corrections.pdf

6 Twisted Boundary Conditions in Lattice QCD

Speaker: Alessandro Barone (University of Southampton)

NexT_talk_Barone.pdf

7 Exploring Multilepton Signatures From Dark Matter at the LHC

While overwhelming cosmological evidences point to the existence of Dark Matter (DM), only its gravitational interaction has been experimentally confirmed. Limitations on the most general mono-X DM signature at colliders motivate searches beyond this. This could manifest in the form of a weak multiplet/doublet DM via weak interactions giving multilepton plus missing energy final states that can be probed at the LHC. Here we present our latest limits on inert 2-Higgs Doublet model (I2HDM) and Minimal Fermion Dark Matter model (MFDM) for 8/13 TeV pp collisions, producing 2-3 leptons plus missing energy final states, using CheckMATE.

Speaker: Arran Charles Freegard (Queen Mary University of London (GB))

Exploring Multilepton Signatures From Dark Matter at the LHC NExT 29_03_2021.pdf

8 Using Machine Learning to find Dark Matter

Dark Matter has been a significantly difficult problem to solve for decades. With possible production channels being very similar to common background processes, trying to isolate signals has become like looking for a needle in a cosmic haystack. Machine Learning advancements have caused an acceleration in physics computing and allowed us to use sophisticated techniques to more accurately and quickly find possible new physics. How is ML being used today to find Dark Matter and what does it mean for the physics community at large?

Speaker: Joe Davies (University of London (GB))

lightening_talk_AD.pdf

9 Model Building with Reinforcement Learning

Machine learning has become an incredibly useful tool for studying string/particle theory. For the most part this research has used Supervised learning, where large data sets from physics and related mathematics have been used to train neural networks. Instead, this talk will address if techniques of reinforcement learning can be used to train a neural network to construct particle physics models. We then demonstrate these ideas by applying them to the Froggatt-Nielsen models of fermion masses. https://arxiv.org/abs/2103.04759v1

Speaker: Thomas Harvey (Oxford University)

Corresponding Paper

ReinforceModelBuilding.pdf

10 New Technique for Space Debris Identification and Tracking

Over 6 decades of human activities in space resulted in thousands of tonnes of objects (with various sizes, shapes and materials) in Earth's orbit. There is a big challenge to detect, identify and track objects of smaller sizes (less than 10 cm) particularly in higher altitudes. This research is focusing on the possibility of using MKIDs (Microwave Kinetic Inductance Detectors) for developing novel tools with new capability in detection and identification of debris with small sizes in all orbits.

Speaker: Saeed Vahedikamal (UCL (University College London ))

NExT PhD Workshop- SAEED.pdf

Tuesday, 30 March

BSM physics (Matthew McCullough): Lecture 2

Convener: Jacob Thomas Linacre (Science and Technology Facilities Council STFC (GB))

lecturenotes.pdf

11:30 Quick break

Dark matter (Anne Green): Lecture 1

Convener: Stephen West (Royal Holloway, University of London)

PBHDM1.pdf

PBHDM2.pdf

PBHDM3.pdf

13:05 Lunch

LHC searches (Caterina Doglioni): Lecture 3

Convener: Jacob Thomas Linacre (Science and Technology Facilities Council STFC (GB))

20210329_Doglioni_BSM_NeXT_1.pdf

20210329_Doglioni_BSM_NeXT_2.pdf

20210330_Doglioni_BSM_NeXT_3.pdf

15:40 Coffee break

BSM physics (Matthew McCullough): Lecture 3

Convener: Stephen West (Royal Holloway, University of London)

lecturenotes.pdf

Wednesday, 31 March

Dark matter (Anne Green): Lecture 2

Convener: Stephen West (Royal Holloway, University of London)

PBHDM1.pdf

PBHDM2.pdf

PBHDM3.pdf

11:30 Quick break

Precision calculations for LHC (Jonas Lindert): Lecture 1

Convener: Jacob Thomas Linacre (Science and Technology Facilities Council STFC (GB))

JL_NEXTPhD20.pdf

13:05 Lunch

Precision calculations for LHC (Jonas Lindert): Lecture 2

Convener: Nikolas Kauer (Royal Holloway, University of London)

JL_NEXTPhD20.pdf

15:40 Coffee break

Student Session: Talks (2). Chair: Saeed Vahedikamal, with Andrea Banfi.

11 Use of Kappa Formulation to Achieve a 2HDM Model Type Independent Scanner

In our project we wish to make use of the kappa formulation in order to avoid choosing specific 2HDMs in our searches. In doing so we can maximise the value of our search by considering points with the highest cross-sections w.r.t. to Kappas instead of w.r.t. coupling strengths taken from QFT rules (which are of course restricted to individual models by definition). I give a brief overview of the theory and plans for this.

Speaker: Ciara Byers (University of Southampton)

CByers2HDMPresentation.pdf

12 Taking Top-EFT For a Spin

Speaker: Ethan Lewis Simpson (University of Glasgow (GB))

xnext_ethansimpson.pdf

13 High precision QCD amplitudes

Due to increasing precision of measurements at the Large Hadron Collider, high precision theoretical calculations are necessary for validation of the Standard Model of Elementary Particles predictions. In recent years, photon production processes have played an important role, especially in relation to Higgs boson phenomenology. In my research, I am using broad range of state-of-the-art methods in order to compute fully differential cross section for photon production at high perturbative order.

Speaker: Piotr Bargiela (Univeristy of Oxford)

NextPresentation.pdf

14 HAL-QCD Approach to Interquark Potentials

In this short talk I will be briefly talking through an approach used in lattice QCD to calculate the interquark potential: the potential felt between quarks in a bound state due to the presence of the other quarks in that state. I will introduce the concept by recreating an early piece of work in the area and then, time permitting, explain how I am extending this early work to reduce errors and calculate the potential over distances that are non-integer multiples of the lattice spacing.

Speaker: Thomas Spriggs

thomas_spriggs_student_presentation.pdf

15 Search for tZq production in association with a Z boson in the dilepton final state

First observed by the CDF and D0 collaborations at Fermilab in 1995, the top quark is the heaviest of the known elementary particles and has a mass of around 172.6 GeV. Its heavy mass leads to it having a short lifetime of 10-24 s, which is less than the time scale required for hadronization. Therefore, unlike other quarks, the top quark can pass on spin information to its decay particles. Its mass also enables it to be the only quark heavy enough to decay into a W boson and bjet. These are some of the reasons that motivate the study of top quark production. In the LHC, the dominant production mode is top-antitop pair production, but the top quark can also be produced singly, in association with a heavy vector boson. An example of this is tZq production, which has been observed by CMS in the t-channel in the trilepton final state. The tZq production mechanisms are predicted by the Standard Model (SM) and are sensitive to both the tZ and WWZ couplings. They therefore can be used to probe electroweak interactions that involve a top quark. Additionally, tZq production forms an irreducible background to rare SM processes, such as tH production and to Beyond the Standard Model processes, such as flavour changing neutral current production (tZq-FCNC). This talk will discuss the current search for tZq production in the t-channel in the dilepton final state. For the search, a shape-based analysis is conducted of data recorded by the CMS detector in 2016, 2017 and 2018, and of simulation samples.

Speaker: Kathryn Wendy Coldham (Brunel University (GB))

XNeXT_PhD_Workshop_KathrynColdham.pdf

16 Normalising Flows as Trivialising Maps for Lattice $\phi^4$ Theory

Speaker: Joe Marsh Rossney (University of Edinburgh)

NExT 2021 presentation slides.pdf

17 Plasma kinetics for plasma medicine applications in cancer treatment

The possibility of generating low temperature non-thermal equilibrium atmospheric pressure plasmas in contact with liquid has led to a large number of biological and medical applications such as cancer treatment through plasma-induced apoptosis, dermatological applications, and wound healing. The major plasma reactive species mainly rely on the plasma temperature. Gas temperature can vary rapidly in the presence of liquids therefore, gas temperature is a vital factor which impacts the determination of the technological application of each type of plasma. Plasma activated microdroplets has a great importance in developing cancer treatment therapy, however, microdroplets significantly affects the gas temperature so it requires more control especially for biomedical applications that needs heat control such as skin cancer treatment. This project aims at studying the chemical kinetics of low-temperature atmospheric pressure plasma. My initial focus is on measuring and controlling gas temperature measurements in the presence of microdroplets using infrared temperature sensor (IR) that provides instant and accurate measurements (my recent published paper). Then studying the chemical analysis of plasma exposed microdroplet surfaces. This study also will include monitoring the effect of low energy electrons (LEE) generated by the plasma on the damage of DNA cancer cells and the possibility of delivering activated microdroplets inside the human body for effective cancer treatment.

Speaker: Nourhan Hendawy (Ulster University)

Nourhan Hendawy 10th NExT PhD Workshop ppt .pdf

18 Lepton Flavour Non-Universality in U(1) Extended MSSMs

We studied phenomenological implications of numerous Lepton Flavour Non-Universal U(1)′ sub-models in the U(1) extended Supersysmmetric Model (UMSSM) In doing this, we started with anomaly cancellation criteria to generate a number of solutions in which the extra U(1) charges of the particles are treated as free parameters. We imposed existing bounds coming from colliders and astrophysical observations on the assumed sub-models and observed that current limits dictate certain orientations. Related with potential impact of non-universal charges on the Z' decays we made predictions for the existing and future experiments. We also probe the signatures of the lepton non-universality at the future Linear Colliders.

Speaker: Dr Yasar Hicyilmaz (University of Southampton)

NExT_PhD_School_yasar.pdf

Thursday, 1 April

SEPnet Employer Panel Session

Conveners: Stephen West (Royal Holloway, University of London), Veronica Benson (University of Surrey)

SEPnet Employer Panel Biographical Details.pdf

12:00 Lunch

Student Session: Virtual poster session

Conveners: Jacob Thomas Linacre (Science and Technology Facilities Council STFC (GB)), Stefano Moretti (Science and Technology Facilities Council STFC (GB)), Stephen West (Royal Holloway, University of London)

19 A new technique for the reconstruction of the interaction vertices inside the CMS detector at HL-LHC.

Speaker: Giovanna Salvi (Science and Technology Facilities Council STFC (GB))

GiovannaSalvi.pdf

20 Adaptive Multi Vertex Fitter for Secondary Vertexing

Speaker: Neza Ribaric (Lancaster University (GB))

AMVFposter-NRibaric.pdf

21 Jet Clustering Techniques for New Higgs Boson Searches in Hadronic Final State

Speaker: Shubhani Jain (University of Southampton)

NExT_phd_workshop_SJ.pdf

22 MultiScale Modelling of Vacancy Diffusion Mechanisms Leading to Void Formation

Speaker: Vasileios Fotopoulos (University College London (UCL))

X NExT PhD Workshop Vasileios Fotopoulos Poster.pdf

23 Possibility of a new level of space debris identification and tracking by Microwave Kinetic Inductance Detectors (MKIDs)

Speaker: Saeed Vahedikamal (UCL (University College London ))

8ECSD2021_Possibility of a new level of space debris identification and tracking by MKIDs-Poster-.pdf

24 Sneutrino DM signals as probe of neutrino seesaw dynamics

Speaker: YI LIU (university of Southampton)

Poster.pdf

Dark matter (Anne Green): Lecture 3

Convener: Jacob Thomas Linacre (Science and Technology Facilities Council STFC (GB))

PBHDM1.pdf

PBHDM2.pdf

PBHDM3.pdf

15:30 Coffee break

Precision calculations for LHC (Jonas Lindert): Lecture 3

Convener: Stephen West (Royal Holloway, University of London)

JL_NEXTPhD20.pdf

25 Prizes and goodbye

goodbye.pdf