Postgraduate Research and Courses

The Theoretical Physics Division has active research groups in various areas of Elementary Particle Theory.

For an overview of our research activities see the Research page and the personal home pages of staff members.

Postgraduate courses and other activities recommended to our postgraduates are explained here.

Research Degrees

The two research degrees available are the Master of Philosophy (M.Phil.) and the Doctor in Philosophy (Ph.D.). For each degree the candidate must successfully complete original work; the standard for the Ph.D. is higher than that for the M.Phil. Initial registration is for the M.Phil., normally with transfer to Ph.D. at the end of the first year, subject to satisfactory progress. Additional information is available from the University Graduate School webpage.

Financial Support

British Ph.D. students are normally supported by a studentship awarded by the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC). Applicants must have a good Honours Degree (Class I or II.1), normally Class I. For more informations about current openings, see our vacancies page.

Recent Thesis Titles:

The anomalous magnetic moment of the muon and the QED coupling at the Z-boson mass (Ruofan Liao, 2011)

New third-order corrections and large-x resummation in perturbative QCD (Gary Soar, 2011)

From four dimensional instantons to extremal black holes (Kirk Waite, 2011)

Renormalisation of N=1/2 supersymmetric theories (Rob Purdy, 2010)

Loop study of Gribov-Zwanziger confinement and mass operators in quantum chromodynamics (Frank Ford, 2009)

Semi-realistic Heterotic Z₂ x Z₂ Orbifold Models (Elisa Manno, 2009)

Diffractive processes and parton distributions in the small-x regime (Catherine Nockles, 2009)

A high statistics study of the scalar singlet states in lattice QCD (Christopher Richards, 2009)

Metastable Vacua and Geometrical Engineering (Ben Wetenhall, 2009)

Realistic models of low energy physics from anomaly mediated supersymmetry breaking. (Richard Hodgson, 2008)

Properties of mesons from lattice gauge theories. (Jenny Pickavance, 2006)

One-loop Renormalisation of N = 1/2 Supersymmetric Gauge Theory. (Lindsay Worthy, 2005)

Higher Order Corrections in the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model (Ahmad Farzaneh Kord, 2005)

Investigations into Dimension Two Operators and Dynamically Generated Gluon Mass in Quantum Chromodynamics. (Ruth Browne, 2005)

Aspects of B Physics From the Lattice. (Gavin Thompson, 2005)

A Study Of Glueballs And Scalar Mesons In Lattice QCD. (Steve Miller, 2004)

Non-Linear Dynamics in Supersymmetic Hybrid Inflation Models. (Matthew Broadhead, 2004)

Fermion determinants in lattice QCD (C.A. Johnson, 2002)

Aspects of non-abelian Quantum Field Theory (D.B. Ali, 2001)

An investigation of the running coupling and meson masses in lattice QCD (K.J. Sharkey, 2001)

Abelian dualities and sigma models (S. Parsons, 2000)