HEP

About half the group is involved with ATLAS, there is also strong involvement in neutrino experiments (MINOS, SuperNEMO and ANITA/ARA), current and future dark matter detectors (LUX/LZ), a small muon physics program (g-2 and COMET) and accelerator research (AWAKE).

Graduate Courses

The first half of the first year will be taken up with lectures two days a week, with a couple of problem sheets to do as well. A healthy breakdown is probably to do a day and a half on these with the other day and a half getting used to the code and such that you will be using for the rest of your PhD.

Travel/conference and computing budget

You will probably get to travel a lot for actually working on your experiment as well as for conferences and may spend a long term attachment (LTA) at your experiment. Discussion about this will be with your supervisor.

There is also the STFC Summer School that all first years attend at the end of their first years (except theorists, who go to a different school). Also, many students go to other (more international) summer schools in later years as well as conferences. Again, talk to your supervisor.

Seminars

Weekly seminars on Friday afternoons for the whole group (attendance is highly recommended).

Important People

• • Nikos Konstantinidis (head of postgraduates)

  • Mark Lancaster (head of group)

  • If you have any questions about anything mundane, ask the people in your office (they don’t bite) or one of the HEP PPGSSC reps.

Social Stuff and Facebook

We regularly go for lunch together at about 12.30, someone will no doubt knock on your office door. We also go for drinks at the Jeremy Bentham pub on Friday evenings.

There is also the “ucl hep social group” on facebook where we sometimes try to organise events.