News

STFC SPG awarded to NExT Fellow (July 2010)

Dr Sebastian Jaeger (University of Sussex) has been awarded an STFC Special Projects Grant for the project "Connecting LHCb to theories of the weak scale". The grant runs for a two-year period and includes a new Post-Doctoral position at Sussex. [It was the only grant awarded in the 2009 theory round.]

New NExT Visitor (June 2010)

Prof Shabaan Khalil from the British University in Egypt will join the NExT Institute for two months starting in June 2010 to work on a project titled ‘Phenomenological Implications of the Supersymmetric B-L Extension of the Standard Model at the Large Hadron Collider’ in collaboration with Prof Stefano Moretti, Dr Alexander Belyaev, Dr Claire H Shepherd-Themistocleous, Mr Lorenzo Basso and Mr Giovanni M Pruna. The financial support is provided through an International Travel Grant from the Royal Society.

New NExT Fellow (May 2010)

Dr Andrew Akeroyd from National Central University (Jhongli, Taiwan) has been awarded a FP7 Marie Curie International Incoming Fellowship to be held at the NExT Institute for two years starting in September 2010 for research work on the project ‘Probing electrically charged Higgs bosons at the CERN's Large Hadron Collider: a collaboration between theory and experiment’.

Royal Society Grant Involving NExT (February 2010)

The Institute is pleased to announce that and Dr Alexander Belyaev and Prof Alexander Pukhov have been awarded an International Joint Project grant from The Royal Society for the project "Discovering New Physics at the LHC" involving a joint collaboration between the University of Southampton, Rutherford Appleton Laboratory and Moscow State University (Russia).

New NExT Visiting Student (February 2010)

An early stage researcher, Mr Luca Fedeli from University of Florence (Italy), joined the NExT Institute as a visiting PhD student starting from February 2010. He will be based in Southampton and will be working on extra gauge boson physics in collaboration with Prof Stefano Moretti, Dr Elena Accomando and Dr Alexander Belyaev. He is supported by a Doctoral Grant from Italy.

IPPP Associateship to NExT Fellow (October 2009)

Dr Nikolas Kauer has been awarded for 2009-2010 an Associateship to the Institute for Particle Physics Phenomenology (IPPP) funded by Durham University to work on the project ‘Optimising predictions for Higgs and Beyond the Standard Model searches at the LHC’, see here for more details.

Seven New NExT PhD Students (September 2009)

The institute is pleased to announce that seven SEPnet funded PhD positions have now been awarded: Mr Patrik Svantesson, Mr Luca Marzola and Mr Diego Becciolini will be based in Southampton; Mr Andrew Williams and Mr Stephan Tietz will be based in RHUL; Mr Anthony Rose and Ms Susanne Boehner will be based in Sussex.

Honorary Professorship to NExT Fellow (September 2009)

Dr Roman Zwicky has been awarded an Honorary Professorship in the Faculty of Science of the University of Southern Denmark (SDU) in Odense for the period of 2009-2014 in connection with the CP3 Origins Centre of Excellence for Particle Physics Phenomenology.

Royal Society Grant Involving NExT (June 2009)

The Institute is pleased to announce that Dr Beatriz de Carlos and Dr Alexander Belyaev have been awarded an International Joint Project grant from The Royal Society for the project ‘Novel strategies for probing the string scale at the Large Hadron Collider’ involving a joint collaboration between the University of Southampton and the University of Madrid. The other scientists involved are Prof. J.A. Casas, Dr J.M. Moreno and 3 PhD students from both sites.

University of Southampton Grant to NExT (April 2009)

The Institute is pleased to announce that Dr Alexander Belyaev has won a grant from the University of Southampton Internationalisation Fund to develop a collaboration with Michigan and Moscow State Universities on the project ‘ Discovering New Physics at the LHC’. The international collaborators are Prof Sekhar Chivukula, Prof Elizabeth Simmons, Dr Neil Christensen and Prof Alexander Pukhov.

New NExT Visitor (April 2009)

Prof Shabaan Khalil from the British University in Egypt will join the NExT Institute for two weeks starting in June 2009 to work on a project titled ‘Search for B-L Extensions of the MSSM at the LHC’ in collaboration with Prof Stefano Moretti, Dr Alexander Belyaev, Dr Claire H Shepherd-Themistocleous, Mr Lorenzo Basso and Mr Giovanni M Pruna. The financial support is provided by the University of Southampton and the Centre for Fundamental Physics (CfFP).

New NExT Visitor (April 2009)

Dr Luca Panizzi from the University of Trieste, Italy, will visit the NExT Institute for three months. He will be carrying out his research on the project "Analysis of Processes of Production of Third Family Particles at the LHC in Supersymmetric Theories" in collaboration with Prof Stefano Moretti, Prof Steve King, Dr Pasquale di Bari and Dr Alexander Belyaev. He will be supported by an International Travel Grant from the Royal Society.

New NExT Visitor (March 2009)

Prof Abdesslam Arhrib from the University Abdelmalek Essaadi, Tangier, Morocco, will visit the NExT Institute for one month. He will be working on the research project ‘Testing extended scalar sectors in Higgs-pair production at the Large Hadron Collider’ with Prof Stefano Moretti and Dr Rui Santos. He is supported by a ‘Visiting Researcher Grant’ from the Science and Technology Facilities Council.

New NExT Visiting Research Fellow (January 2009)

Dr Renato Guedes from the University of Lisbon (Portugal), will join the NExT Institute for at least one year as a visiting post-doctoral research fellow starting from January 2009. He will be based in Southampton working on Higgs and top physics under the supervision of Prof Stefano Moretti and Dr Rui Santos. He is supported by the ‘BPD abroad’ scheme of FCT - the Foundation for Science and Technology of Portugal.

Six New NExT Fellows/Lecturers (November 2008)

The institute is pleased to announce that six Fellow/Lecturer positions have now been awarded: Dr Elena Accomando (from Turin), Dr Pasquale di Bari (from Padua) and Dr Roman Zwicky (from Edinburgh) will be based in Southampton; Dr Nikolas Kauer (from Wurzburg) and Dr Stephen West (from Oxford) will be based in RHUL; Dr Sebastian Jaeger (from TU Munich) will be based in Sussex.

New NExT Visiting Student (October 2008)

An early stage researcher, Mr Miguel Won from University of Coimbra (Portugal), joined the NExT Institute as a visiting PhD student starting from October 2008. He will be based in Southampton and will be working on top and Higgs physics in collaboration with Dr Antonio Onofre from the University of Coimbra and ATLAS collaboration member plus Prof Stefano Moretti and Dr Rui Santos. He is supported by the ‘PhD Mixed Grant’ scheme of FCT - the Foundation for Science and Technology of Portugal.

NExT Obtains Major HEFCE Funding (April 2008)

RAL RHUL

Following the approval by the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) of funding for 12.5 million pounds, to bring together, promote and sustain physics provision in six departments in the South East of England through the South East Physics network (SEPnet), the NExT Institute secures a grant in excess of 1.5 million pounds over 5 years, including a sizable contribution from the Science & Technology Facilities Council (STFC). This will allow for an expansion of the Institute into a wider alliance to include also the experimental particle physics group at the Royal Holloway University of London (RHUL) plus the experimental and theoretical particle physics groups at the University of Sussex (in addition to SHEP and RAL-PPD). This will generate at least 5 permanent positions, each of which will be held jointly between theory and experiment and by pairings of two amongst the four nodes. In addition, the enlarged Institute will put in place a new international visitor programme as well as a novel graduate school (PhD and MSc degrees), which will involve mixed (theoretical and experimental) training and supervision, networking across all nodes, student placements at the experiment locations (such as CERN) and in industry, videolinked delivery of seminars and graduate lectures, annual workshops and a final graduate conference.

After the 5 year HEFCE grant period, the three Universities will continue to support this activity.

This is an exciting news for the NExT Institute, the UK and particle physics in general.

Soton Sussex

Prestigious Travel Grant (April 2008)

A travel grant to and from Japan has been awarded to Dr Stefano Moretti and Dr Shinya Kanemura (University of Toyama) via the PMI2 Connect - Research Co-operation Award scheme around the project ‘Charged Higgs Bosons as Signals of New Physics’ under the auspices of the British Council and Education UK. This will enable regular exchange visits between NExT and Toyama over a two year period.

New NExT Visitor (April 2008)

Prof Krishnamoorthy Sridhar from the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (Mumbai, India) will join the NExT Institute during the summer months to work on a project titled ‘Searches for Extra Dimensions at the Large Hadron Collider and Beyond’, financed through the University of Southampton Internationalisation Fund.

New NExT Student (March 2008)

Mr Giovanni M Pruna from Cagliari University joined the NExT Institute as a PhD student starting from March 2008 to work on LHC phenomenology with links to CMS. He is supported by the ‘Master and Back’ scheme of Regione Sardegna (Italy).

New NExT Visitor (February 2008)

Dr Johan Rathsman from Uppsala University (Sweden) will join the NExT Institute during this month to work on a project titled ‘Phenomenology of models with an extended Higgs sector’ financed by a Royal Society Short Visit to the UK grant.

New NExT Student (January 2008)

Mr Mosleh Maeedh Al-Marashi from King Saud University will join the NExT Institute from October 2008 for three years as a PhD student to work on LHC phenomenology. He is supported by a Taibah University (Saudi Arabia) grant.

New NExT Fellow (July 2008)

Dr Rui Alberto Serra Ribeiro dos Santos from Royal Holloway University of London (RHUL) has been awarded a FP7 Marie Curie Intra-European Fellowship for Career Development to be held at the NExT Institute for two years starting in July 2008 for research work on the project ‘Testing non-standard Higgs and top-quark Production and Decay at the CERN's Large Hadron Collider: a Collaboration between Theory and Experiment’.

New NExT Visitor (May 2008)

Dr Guido Macorini from Trieste University will join the NExT Institute for three months starting in May 2008 to work on a project titled ‘Top Quark Production at the LHC’ financed by a British Council Researcher Exchange Programme award.

New NExT Visitor (January 2008)

Prof Kenneth Lane from Boston University will join the NExT Institute for five weeks starting in January 2008 to work on a project titled ‘Prime Signatures for Low-scale Technicolor at the LHC and ILC’ in collaboration with Dr Claire H Shepherd-Themistocleous and with financial support coming from the Centre for Fundamental Physics (CfFP).

New NExT Fellow (November 2007)

Dr Carlo Carloni from Pavia University has been awarded a very prestigious and highly competitive two-year ‘Fellowship for Italian Citizens Abroad’ from INFN to continue working on the research programme “When Weak Interactions Become Strong” within the NExT Institute.

New NExT Student (October 2007)

Mr Lorenzo Basso from Padova University will join the NExT Institute from October 2007 for three years as a PhD student to work on LHC phenomenology alongside CMS. He is supported by a NExT Scholarship.

New NExT Fellow/Lecturer (July 2007)

Dr Alexander Belyaev from Michigan State University will join the NExT Institute on a permanent basis as Fellow and then Lecturer starting from Summer 2007. He is one of the leading world experts on phenomenology of the SM and beyond at present and future high energy colliders.

New NExT Visiting Professorship (April 2007)

Prof Abdelhak Djouadi from Universite Paris-Sud (Orsay) will join the NExT Institute for six months starting from 1 April 2007 on a Leverhulme Visiting Professorship to work on a research programme involving the phenomenology of Higgs bosons of minimal and non-minimal Supersymmetric models at present and future colliders.

New NExT Visitor (January 2007)

Dr Carlo Carloni from Pavia University will join the NExT Institute for six months starting in January 2007 to work on a project titled ‘When Weak Interactions Become Strong’ financed by a Royal Society Short Visit to the UK grant and a British Council Researcher Exchange Programme award.

New NExT Postdoctoral-Fellow (December 2006)

Dr Stefan Hesselbach was awarded a NExT post-doctoral fellowship for a research project on non-minimal Supersymmetric models at the LHC.

Tools 2010 in Southampton (November 2006)

A successful application to FP6 within the Series of Events (SCF) scheme led by Dr Fawzi Boudjema (LAPTH), Dr Genevieve Belanger (LAPTH), Prof Wolfgang Hollik (MPI) and Dr Stefano Moretti (NExT) will enable them to run the following Workshops: