About the Project

A 3.5-year Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC)-funded PhD studentship is available for nuclear physics research at the University of Brighton. The Brighton group has a long history of using gamma-ray spectroscopy techniques to study shapes and structures in atomic nuclei. Members of the group undertake experimental work at international laboratories allowing students to gain a range of hands-on experience and then take ownership for the analysis and interpretation of a particular data set. This allows the student to obtain a good overall understanding of experimental and theoretical aspects of nuclear physics research. The use of international facilities means that the selected student will gain a good introduction to the nuclear physics community worldwide and be aware of, and contribute to, exciting developments in the field.

The group has approved experiments to use the GSI/FAIR facility in Darmstadt, Germany, the Horia Hulubei National Institute of Physics and Nuclear Engineering (IFIN-HH) in Bucharest, Romania and the Radioactive Ion Beam Facility in Japan. The experiments focus on the observation and measurement of exotic nuclei (ones at the extremes of the isotopic chart) in order to extend our understanding to this region of unexplored nuclei. The selected student will be an integral part of the team undertaking one of these experiments and then use state-of-the-art data-analysis techniques to analyse the (typically) large data sets and interpret the results in the framework of current models.