Nuclear and Particle Physics
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Academic staff
Name Position/Title Research interests Area Publications Dr. Irene Bolognino Lecturer Dark matter / SABRE / Cygnus CDMPP InspireHEP A/Prof. Gary Hill CI CDMPP Dark matter / SABRE CDMPP InspireHEP Prof. Paul Jackson CI CDMPP Experimental collider physics HEP, CDMPP InspireHEP Prof. Derek Leinweber Associate Director CSSM QCD CSSM InspireHEP Prof. Anthony Thomas AC FAA Director CSSM, CI CDMPP CSSM, HEP, CDMPP InspireHEP Prof. Martin White CI CDMPP, CDMPP Adelaide Node Leader Particle physics HEP, CDMPP InspireHEP Prof. Anthony Williams Associate Director CSSM, Deputy Director CDMPP CSSM, CDMPP, HEP InspireHEP A/Prof. Ross Young QCD CSSM, HEP InspireHEP Prof. James Zanotti QCD CSSM InspireHEP -
Research Fellows
Name Research interests Area Publications Dr. Giorgio Busoni Dark matter/BSM physics CDMPP InspireHEP Dr. Utku Can QCD CSSM InspireHEP Dr. John Gargalionis CDMPP InspireHEP Dr. Kamiel Janssens Dark matter CDMPP
InspireHEP Dr. Ayse Kizilersu QCD/QED CSSM InspireHEP Dr. Max Lohe Theory CSSM InspireHEP Dr. Alasdair McLean Dark matter CDMPP InspireHEP Dr. Shreya Saha Particle physics HEP InspireHEP Dr. Finn Stokes QCD CSSM InspireHEP Dr. Xuan-Gong Wang Dark matter CDMPP InspireHEP -
Students
Name Level Supervisor/s Area Publications PhD Camron Alley PhD Jackson/White CDMPP Joshua Crawford PhD Zanotti/Young CSSM InspireHEP Aman Desai PhD Jackson/White CDMPP Matthew Fewell PhD Jackson/White CDMPP James Gallagher PhD Jackson/White CDMPP Kenn Goh PhD Williams/Sengupta Charles Grant PhD Jackson/White CDMPP Matthew Green PhD White/Jackson CDMPP *Minh Tan Ha PhD Hill/Jackson CDMPP Cameron Harris PhD Jackson CDMPP Nabil Humphrey PhD Zanotti/Young CSSM Nicholas Hunt-Smith PhD Thomas/White CDMPP InspireHEP Wasif Husain PhD Thomas/Leinweber CDMPP InspireHEP Thomas Kabelitz PhD Leinweber/Waseem CSSM Albert Kong PhD Jackson/Frederic Deliot (CEA, Saclay) CDMPP InspireHEP Judith Kull PhD Jackson/Frederic Deliot (CEA, Saclay) CDMPP Kyle Leaver PhD Hill/Williams CDMPP Jesper Leong PhD Thomas/Leinweber CSSM InspireHEP Jesper Leong PhD Thomas/Leinweber CSSM Bill Loizos PhD Williams/Wang CDMPP Jordan McKee PhD Zanotti/Young/Can CSSM Jackson Mickley PhD Leinweber/Kamleh CSSM Shiryu Owa PhD Thomas/Leinweber CSSM InspireHEP Hitarthi Pandya PhD Jackson/White CDMPP Skye Platten PhD Williams CSSM Haylea Purnell PhD Jackson/White CDMPP Tristan Ruggeri PhD Jackson/White CDMPP InspireHEP Matthew Rumley PhD Thomas/Young CSSM Edmund Ting PhD White/Jackson CDMPP InspireHEP Ian van Schalkwyk PhD Zanotti/Young CSSM Bradley Wegener PhD Young/Zanotti CSSM Tazwar Zaheen PhD Kizilersu/Thomas CSSM MPhil Connor Carrington MPhil Kizilersu/Thomas CSSM Joshua Gill MPhil Williams/Sengupta CDMPP Ragib Hasan MPhil Leinweber CSSM Duncan McClay MPhil Williams/Sengupta CDMPP Joshua Perks MPhil Zanotti/Young CSSM George Sanamyan MPhil Williams/Sengupta CDMPP Thomas Schar MPhil Young/Zanotti CSSM Ewan Wallace MPhil White/Williams CDMPP Honours Lula Abdirashid Ali Hons Zanotti/Young/Can CSSM Jake Felix Hons Thomas/Wang CDMPP Keith Kelley Hons Stokes CSSM Kael Kemp Hons Jackson CDMPP Alex Moulds Hons Young/Zanotti CSSM Finn Pelling Hons Thomas/Wang CDMPP -
Support staff
Name Role Emily Campbell Office administrator Dr. Padric McGee Research support Ramona Rogers Systems admin. Silvana Santucci Office administrator Dr. Jonathan Woithe Systems admin. Sharon Johnson PA (retired) -
HEP Computing Cluster
The High-Energy Physics (HEP) computing cluster at the University of Adelaide is available for researchers in the ARC Special Research Centre for the Subatomic Structure of Matter (CSSM), High-Energy Physics (HEP) group and the ARC Centre of Excellence for Dark Matter Particle Physics (CDMPP). Requests for student accounts should be directed to supervisors.
The cluster consists of a number of loosely-coupled computers which can be used to run jobs. Five AMD Ryzen-based systems are managed by the Slurm queuing system, with an additional Ryzen used for manually-managed jobs. A further six Intel Xeon computers are available for ad hoc jobs, software development, and debugging. A high-performance Hewlett Packard node is included for specialised work which requires high core counts and a large amount of memory.
All systems provide a common software environment which includes CVMFS, python, OpenMPI, and CUDA. Through CVMFS, a large number of software packages can be accessed, including ROOT, Geant4, various compiler environments, and many versions of python. The primary way of accessing the cluster machines is through ssh.
The nodes in the cluster all have access to a RAID-5 NAS, which provides high-bandwidth, high-capacity storage for all users.
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International Lattice Data Grid
The CSSM acts as the regional grid for Australia within the International Lattice Data Grid (ILDG), a worldwide effort to make valuable data sets from lattice QCD simulations available throughout the international scientific community.
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Visitors
Dr. Wally Melnitchouk QCD Dr. Emmanuel Moulin Dark matter Prof. Peter Tandy QCD Dr. Laura Venuti Star formation -
Past members
Please see this page for a list of past members of the various NUPP research areas.
The Nuclear and Particle Physics Group undertakes research across all aspects of subatomic physics, from experimental and theoretical particle physics (including dark matter) to theoretical work in quantum chromodynamics (QCD), nuclear structure, and neutron stars.
Our staff and students are involved in international collaborations such as the Large Hadron Collider (especially the ATLAS and Belle II experiments) and in cutting-edge research in areas such as effective field theories and QCD, amongst others. Investigating the true nature of dark matter also is part of the work being done here.
The Group enjoys strong national and international links with other theory groups and experimentalists at major laboratories such as CERN (Switzerland), Jefferson Lab (USA), and J-PAC and KEK (Japan). We have a long history of seminars and colloquia involving staff, students and- when possible- overseas researchers. Many students have gone on to significant positions in institutions across the world, and there is a vibrant student community.
Centre for the Subatomic Structure of Matter (CSSM)
The CSSM has a strong international reputation and works at the forefront of advances in our understanding of the structure of hadronic matter. Hadronic matter makes up almost the entire mass of the tangible universe, from the protons and neutrons that are within the nuclei inside atoms and molecules, to neutron stars.
High-Energy Physics (HEP)
HEP is concerned with studying particle physics, particularly with regards to understanding physics at modern collider experiments and searching for new fundamental physical laws. This includes both the experimental and theoretical aspects of these topics.
Our researchers are also involved in the development and operation of computing resources for particle physics research, particularly GAMBIT.
ARC CoE for Dark Matter Particle Physics (CDMPP) - Adelaide node
A number of staff and students within the Group also are involved with the ARC Centre of Excellence for Dark Matter Particle Physics, which is exploring the nature of dark matter- one of the greatest puzzles in contemporary physics.
News
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2025 News
March 5th 2025 : Tony Thomas gave a public lecture on the topic of neutron stars as part of the March general meeting of the Astronomical Society of South Australia. A video of Tony's presentation may be viewed on Youtube (starting at 4'55").
February 21st 2025 : recent work led by NUPP PhD candidate Joshua Crawford, with Kadir Utku Can, Ross Young, James Zanotti, and international colleagues, has led to an improved understanding of the distribution of the strong force within the proton. See the university's Newsroom article for more details, and the paper itself may be found here.
February 19th 2025 : For some time, the source of the proton's angular momentum - its spin - has been a matter of debate. The value of that spin (0.5 exactly) is not in doubt; rather, what is not yet certain is how that value is made up from the angular momenta of the various components that constitute the proton.
NUPP members Nicholas Hunt-Smith, Anthony Thomas and Martin White are part of the Jefferson Lab Angular Momentum (JAM) collaboration, which has released results based on new experimental observations and data analyses. Findings indicate that the possibility of a negative value for a gluon's spin is lower than previously thought, thereby further constraining possible values for this parameter, and increasing clarity on this long-standing problem.
More details may be found here.
February 10-12th 2025 : The Adelaide node of the CDMPP is pleased once again to be hosting the Dark Matter Centre's Theory workshop.
Participants at the 2025 CDMPP Theory Workshop in Adelaide
February 3rd 2025 : At its Annual Council meeting on 3rd February, the Australian Institute of Physics awarded Honorary Fellowship to Prof. Anthony Thomas AC FAA. This is a notable award, as it is the AIP's highest honour.
February 2025 : We welcome three new Research Fellows - Drs. Giorgio Busoni, John Gargalionis, and Alasdair McLean.
January 24th 2025 : This week, we bid farewell to Kamiel Janssens, whose contract as part of the CDMPP comes to an end soon. We wish him the best for future endeavours, and will miss the results of his baking prowess. (Formally, Kamiel will work remotely with us until March, but is on leave during February.)
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2024 News
November 22nd, 2024 : Professor Tony Williams (Associate Director CSSM, Deputy Director CDMPP) was awarded a 2024 Distinguished Alumni Award by Flinders University, in recognition for his leadership in subatomic physics. More information may be found here.
November 2024 : Professor Davide D'Angelo (SABRE North, INFN) is visiting the Adelaide node of the CDMPP. Professor Tony Thomas presented a talk at the PacificSpin 2024 conference in Hefei, China, and attended the 2024 ANPhA (Asian Nuclear Physics Association) Meeting in Huizhou, China.
October 2024 : Aman Desai attended the 3rd ECFA workshop on e+e- Higgs, Electroweak and Top Factories, in Paris, and then visited CERN. Cameron Harris attended the Belle II General Meeting in Tsukuba, Japan.
September 2024 : Professor Martin White attended, and was on the organising committee, of the GAMBIT Meeting in Italy; Alexander Woodcock also attended the GAMBIT Meeting. Dr. Irene Bolognino talked about SABRE South to students at the Cattaneo Scientific High School, Turin. Hitarthi Pandya attended ITK Week in Liverpool.
August 2024 : The CSSM is hosting this year's incarnation of the Quantum Confinement and the Hadron Spectrum Conference, an international gathering of researchers in this area of subatomic physics; around ten staff and students presented. Professor Tony Thomas gave a talk at the "Towards improved hadron tomography with hard exclusive reactions" workshop, in Trento, Italy. James Gallagher attended the 20th ATLAS Hadronic Calibration Workshop, in Ottawa. Hitarthi Pandya, Matthew Green and James Gallagher visit CERN during August-November.
July 2024 : Professor Paul Jackson presented at the 42nd International Conference on High-Energy Physics (ICHEP 2024) in Prague. Bill Loizos attended the N3AS Summer School in Santa Cruz, USA.
February 2024 : We welcome Drs. Shreya Saha and Kamiel Janssens as new postdocs.
February 9th 2024 : Dr. Harish Potti is moving to a Research Associate position at the University of Sydney. He joined us in April 2021, and we wish him well in his new position.
January 25th 2024 : We farewell Dr. Dipan Sengupta (Research Fellow 2022-2024) and Dr. Laura Venuti (Visitor) today. Dipan will be taking up a tenure position at UNSW, and we wish them both well for their future endeavours.
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2023 News
October 10th 2023 : Professor Tony Thomas and colleagues from the Centre for Dark Matter Particle Physics and the Jefferson Lab (Virginia, USA), have investigated a possible connection between dark photons and dark matter. Recent media exposure includes an article in the Financial Review (requires a subscription to view), and the University's Newsroom. The work is published in the Journal of High-Energy Physics.
August 22nd 2023 : In Education Today, NUPP PhD candidate Emily Filmer discusses the need for diversity in role models for STEM careers, especially when students' direct exposure to such role models is limited.
August 9th 2023 : Professor Tony Thomas was interviewed on ABC Radio Afternoons, discussing aspects of the Large Hadron Collider. The interview may be heard here.
August 9th 2023 : NUPP researcher Dr. Dipan Sengupta gave a public lecture as part of the CDMPP National Quantum & Dark Matter Road Trip. A recording of Dipan's lecture may be found here.
August 2nd 2023 : NUPP researcher Dr. Irene Bolognino gave a public lecture relating to SABRE South and the search for dark matter. This was on behalf of the Astronomical Society of South Australia. A recording of Irene's lecture may be found here.
July 2023 : HEP PhD candidate Emily Filmer was awarded the Best Poster prize at Lepton Photon 2023, for her poster entitled "Searching for BSM physics using challenging and long-lived signatures with the ATLAS Detector."
July 2023 : We are pleased to welcome Emily Campbell as a new member of our office staff.
May 2023 : We are approaching the end of an era at CSSM. Sharon Johnson, who has made CSSM her home away from home for the last 28 years, is about to retire. In addition to the academic staff, generations of students have benefitted from her guidance and caring support. During her tenure, Sharon has successfully led the professional support for more than 40 conferences and workshops. She has also given support to a stream of international visitors, providing assistance with travel and accommodation as well as guidance on local customs and attractions. We thank Sharon for her outstanding service and wish her the very best in the next stage of her life.
Farewell dinner for Sharon Johnson, May 2023.
March 31st 2023 : Emeritus Professor Timothy Londergan of Indiana University presented a public lecture entitled "Ten Misleading Claims by Climate Change Deniers". Professor Londergan is a (retired) theoretical nuclear physicist with a strong interest in countering misinformation and denialism, and is a long-time visitor to the CSSM. Professor Tony Thomas (NUPP) introduced Professor Londergan for this public event. A video of the presentation (~400MB in size) may be found here.
March 7th 2023 : Former NUPP PhD graduate, Prof. Phiala Shanahan (now at MIT), has been named "Innovator of the Year" at the South Australian Woman of the Year Awards, for her significant contribution to her field of research.
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2022 News
November 28th : Professor Anthony Thomas (with Dr. Pierre Guichon (IRFU, Saclay)) was awarded ARC Discovery Project funding for the project "A New Approach to the Structure of Atomic Nuclei".
November 21st : we are pleased to announce that a LIEF grant proposal (details below) led by Professor Paul Jackson was successful:
- Enabling the future of the Australian collider physics program – the project aims to fund the continuation of Australia’s experimental particle physics program to explore how the universe works at its fundamental level. Researchers study subatomic matter at the energy frontier at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider and the intensity frontier at Japan’s SuperKEKB collider. Chief investigator: Professor Paul Jackson. Funding: $2,827,000.
November 19th : Professor Anthony Thomas presented a talk on The Role of Nuclear Power in a Sustainable Future at the 19th Biennial Meeting of the Alexander von Humboldt Association in Geelong.
November 16th : further to the item below, Professor Shannahan also was awarded the 2022 James McWha Rising Star Award.
November 14th : former CSSM PhD student Professor Phiala Shannahan (now at MIT) was awarded the Australian Institute of Physics' Ruby Payne-Scott Award for "...key insights into the structure and interactions of hadrons and nuclei using numerical and analytical methods and pioneering the use of machine learning techniques in lattice quantum field theory calculations in particle and nuclear physics."
August 19th : today marked the official completion of the Stawell Underground Physics Laboratory, the future home of the SABRE South dark matter direct-detection experiment. Adelaide NUPP members, as part of the CDMPP, are working on this experiment.
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2020 News
January 2020 : Professor Anthony Thomas was made a Companion of the Order of Australia in this year's Australia Day honours, for "eminent service to scientific education and research, particularly in the field of nuclear and particle physics, through academic leadership roles."
Seminar series
The Seminar Series runs fortnightly on Wednesdays, at 16:00 in Room 121.
Everyone is welcome. Please also join everyone in the CSSM/CDMPP common area for afternoon tea/coffee after the seminars and a chance for an informal chat with students and academics.
If you would like to present a seminar, please contact the organiser, Liam Hockley (liam.hockley@adelaide.edu.au), or Anthony Thomas.
It has run for many years (with a break in 2020), and is an excellent forum for discussing recent work and results.
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2025 seminar schedule and details
Date Presenter Topic Abstract 2025/3/5 Jackson Mickley Understanding QCD at finite temperature with centre vortices Quark confinement - the phenomenon that quarks are only ever observed bound into hadrons - is still one of the least understood aspects of Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD) from a theoretical point of view. However, confinement is expected to break down at very high temperatures, giving way to the quark-gluon plasma. It is therefore of great interest to perform numerical calculations in this high-temperature regime to understand how QCD evolves as confinement is lost. In this talk we will tackle this problem using centre vortices, a conserved flux that exists in the QCD ground-state fields. We will initially focus on the pure gauge theory - effectively QCD without quarks - as a means to understand the basics of centre vortices and their connection to confinement. This will lay the groundwork for studying full QCD, where centre vortex behaviour will in fact reveal the existence of three (!) distinct regimes in finite-temperature QCD. The nature of the two transitions between these regimes will be studied through various vortex properties, ultimately allowing a precise extraction of the deconfinement point.
2025/2/18 Dr. John Gargalionis Baryon-number violation from the bottom up I will present on the results of our recent paper 2312.13361, in which we study two-body baryon-number-violating proton and neutron decays in the context of the SM EFT at dimensions 6 and 7. Our main results are: (1) accounting for running properly is very important, (2) the SM EFT doesn’t allow flat directions in two-body decays, (3) we are not in trouble if we see only one B-violating decay mode at Hyper-K, (4) it would be nice if hadronic uncertainties could improve. -
2024 seminar schedule and details
Date Presenter Topic Abstract 2024/12/09 Dr. Frédéric Déliot (CEA Saclay) Advances in top quark physics The top quark, as the heaviest particle in the Standard Model of particle physics, holds a unique position, offering a window into fundamental interactions and potential new physics. This seminar will review the latest advancements in top-quark physics while the analyses of the Run 2 of the Large Hadron Collider at CERN are finishing. It will focus on the recent discovery of new properties such as quantum entanglement and new production modes like the observation of four-top-quark production or top-antitop production in heavy-ion collisions. It will also highlight some of the searches for new phenomena in the top-quark sectors. 2024/11/25 Prof. Davide D'Angelo (INFN) ASTAROTH – All Sensitive crysTal ARray with lOw THreshold In the long-standing search for dark matter’s annual modulation with NaI(Tl) detectors, all current-generation experiments are plagued with noise from the PMTs which is about an order of magnitude higher than the signal at the keV recoil energies of interest. ASTAROTH is an R&D project financed by INFN and located at LASA (Laboratori Acceleratori e Superconduttività Applicata) near Milan (Italy). The aim is to replace PMTs with SiPM matrices on all faces of cubic crystals, in order to highly enhance the signal-to-noise in the region of interest, and lower the detection threshold below 1 keV where potentially a large fraction of signal awaits undetected. SiPMs offer several advantages in terms of efficiency of light conversion, radiopurity, compactness and especially noise, if operated at cryogenic temperatures. ASTAROTH has developed an innovative cryostat where the 5-cm cubic crystals can be cooled gently in a He atmosphere, while the cooling power is provided by a liquid argon bath that will be instrumented and act as a veto detector. Crystals will be encapsulated in epoxy resins in order to maintain the transparency on all sides, maximise light collection, and allow for safe manipulation through the cooling cycles- a breakthrough for NaI crystals users. Our cryogenic front-end electronics are based on discrete and integrated technologies with the ambition of providing a working solution that goes beyond our physics scope and could replace PMTs for low-energy astroparticle applications in a wider community. We report about the 2024 run when we have successfully cooled down a crystal with two faces coupled to matrices of SiPM from two different vendors. 2024/9/5 Prof. Nora Brambilla (Technical U. Munich) Non-relativistic multi-scale systems with Effective Field Theories Non-relativistic bound states lie at the core of quantum physics, permeating the fabric of nature across diverse realms, spanning particle to nuclear physics, and from condensed matter to astrophysics. These systems are pivotal in addressing contemporary challenges at the forefront of particle physics. Characterised by distinct energy scales, they serve as unique probes of complex environments. Historically, their incorporation into quantum field theory was fraught with difficulty until the emergence of non-relativistic effective field theories (NREFTs).
In this talk, we delve into the construction of a potential NREFT (pNREFT), a framework that directly tackles bound-state dynamics, reimagining quantum mechanics from-field theory. Focusing on heavy quarkonia, pNRQCD facilitates systematic definitions and precise calculations for high-energy collider observables. At the cutting edge, we investigate non-relativistic bound states in intricate environments, like the newly discovered exotics X, Y, Z above the strong decay threshold, and the behaviour in out-of-equilibrium scenarios, such as quarkonium suppression in a Quark Gluon Plasma, or dark matter interactions in the early universe. Our ability to achieve precision calculations and control strongly-interacting systems is closely linked to bridging perturbative methods with non-perturbative tools, notably numerical lattice gauge theories.
2024/9/4 Prof. Antonio Vairo (Technical U. Munich) Quarkonium meets Dark Matter I review nonrelativistic effective field theories for quarkonium at and out of equilibrium, emphasising their utility also in
describing dark matter pairs near threshold, and their evolution in the early universe.2024/7/10 Joshua Crawford Edinburgh Practice Talk: Transverse Forces in the Proton from Lattice QCD Asymmetries observed in deep-inelastic scattering experiments offer important insights into the structure and dynamics within the proton. The Sivers asymmetry provides information about the transverse momentum of the struck quark and can be related to final state interactions.
We present a lattice QCD calculation of the spatial distribution of a colour-Lorentz force which acts on the struck quark. We determine a spin-independent confining force and a spin-dependent force distribution with local forces larger than the QCD string tension.
These force distributions offer a new, complimentary perspective on the Sivers asymmetry in transversely polarised deep-inelastic scattering.
2024/6/26 Dr. Finn Stokes The Muon Magnetic Moment Mystery: a 20-year puzzle in high-energy physics Almost twenty years ago, physicists at at Brookhaven National Laboratory measured the magnetic moment of the muon with a remarkable precision of 0.54 parts per million. Since that time, the reference Standard Model prediction for this quantity has exhibited a persistent discrepancy with experiment of more than three sigma. This raises the tantalising possibility of undiscovered forces or elementary particles.
The attention of the world was drawn to this discrepancy in 2021, when Fermilab presented a brilliant confirmation of Brookhaven's measurement, which brought the discrepancy to 4.2 sigma.
In the meantime a very-large-scale lattice QCD calculation of a key theoretical contribution was performed by the Budapest-Marseille-Wuppertal collaboration. This result significantly reduces the difference between theory and experiment, suggesting that new physics may not be needed to explain the experimental results. However, it does so at the expense of an untenable discrepancy with the existing data-driven determination of this contribution.
After an introduction and a discussion of the current experimental and theoretical status of the muon magnetic moment, I will present this precise lattice QCD calculation and partial confirmations by other teams. I will also present a framework that enables a comparison of the primary ingredients that are used in the lattice QCD and data-driven approaches and discuss the consequences for our current and future understanding of the longstanding puzzle of the muon magnetic moment.
2024/6/12 Thomas Howson Parton Momentum Fractions from the Feynman-Hellmann Method In this talk, I will outline the work of my PhD, in examining the Feynman-Hellmann methods application in calculating the hadronic parton momentum fractions of the nucleon and pion, values that identify how much of a hadron's energy and momentum originate each from the quarks and gluons. In particular, I will demonstrate the first application of this method in calculating the disconnected matrix element of the energy momentum tensor on both the quark and gluon components of a hadron independently. I will also delve into outlining and calculating a fully non-perturbative renormalisation scheme, that also makes use of the Feynman-Hellmann method. I will show that that the method produces a set of fully self-consistent results, using a reasonable amount of computational resources. 2024/5/29 Dr. Emmanuel Moulin Gamma-ray astronomy and DM The total matter content of the Universe is made of about 85% dark and non-baryonic matter as suggested by growing evidence from astrophysics and cosmology. However, the nature of the dark matter remains a fundamental question of modern physics. A compelling class of stable DM particle candidates are weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs) which motivate numerous experimental efforts to probe their non-gravitational properties. WIMP annihilations would provide gamma rays in the final state that could be eventually detected by Atmospheric Cherenkov telescopes targeting the most promising regions of the sky. 2024/5/15 Emily Filmer PhD near-completion seminar Fresh from her stand-up comedy debut, and not-so-fresh from her thesis edits, Emily brings you the complete works of her candidature, abridged. I will be talking (in first person!) about my work on the ATLAS Experiment - in both silicon detector hardware and the search for long lived gluinos. I'll also be talking about some of the physics-adjacent adventures I've had, and some lessons learned.
2024/4/17 Dr. Kamiel Janssens Understanding the fundaments of the universe - listening to the symphony of gravitational waves After centuries of carefully performed experiments and groundbreaking theories validating and constructively building upon each other, physicists obtained a comprehensive understanding of the Universe. However, this profound knowledge of the Universe pertains to only a tiny fraction of the entire Universe, i.e. barely 5%. Meanwhile we are left searching for the nature of dark matter and dark energy.
One potential way to learn more about these concepts is to listen to the gravitational wave background originating from the earliest epochs of our Universe.
However, to have confidence in a future detection we need exquisite knowledge of the quality of our detectors data.In this talk I will highlight some of the interesting physics we can study by searching for a gravitational wave background. I will discuss the strong evidence for a first signal detection which was found by several pulsar timing arrays as well as how lightning strikes could become a dominant background for the search for a gravitational wave background using Earth-based detectors.
2024/4/10 A/Prof. Matt Dolan (U. Melb.) Precise Predictions and New Insights for the Migdal Effect The scattering of neutral particles by an atomic nucleus can lead to electronic ionisation and excitation through a process known as the Migdal effect. I will describe the necessity of revisiting previous calculations to provide more accurate predictions which allow for large nuclear recoil velocities and incorporate the effects of multiple ionisation. These results are relevant for dark matter direct detection searches, as well as ongoing experiments involving neutron sources. I will also discuss the sensitivity of the HydroX proposal to dope the LZ experiment with hydrogen using the Migdal effect. HydroX could have sensitivity to dark matter masses as low as 5 MeV for both spin-independent and spin-dependent scattering, with XLZD extending that reach to lower cross sections. This technique would substantially enhance the sensitivity of direct detection to spin-dependent proton scattering, well beyond the reach of any current experiments. -
2023 seminar schedule and details
Date Presenter Topic Abstract 2023/12/15 Prof. Chris Allton (Swansea) FASTSUM like it hot QCD has a rich phase structure, much of which is not fully understood. Above the deconfining temperature, QCD exists in a relatively weakly interacting “quark-gluon plasma” phase where quarks are no longer confined. This plasma phase existed briefly in the very early Universe, and, incredibly, can be reproduced in particle experiments in e.g. CERN, where heavy lead nuclei are collided in the Large Hadron Collider. The theoretical understanding of this phase can contribute to the analysis and interpretation of these heavy-ion collision experiments.
This talk will review the FASTSUM Collaboration’s studies of thermal QCD. It will include baryon and bottomonium spectrum calculations, results from the inter-quark potential, gluon propagator studies and an intriguing result where a pionic rabbit is pulled from a rho hat.
2023/9/6 Rose Smail Constraining beyond the Standard Model nucleon isovector charges At the TeV scale, low-energy precision observations of neutron characteristics provide unique probes of novel physics. Precision studies of neutron decay observables are susceptible to Beyond the Standard Model (BSM) tensor and scalar interactions, while the neutron electric dipole moment, dn, also has high sensitivity to new BSM CP-violating interactions. To fully utilise the potential of future experimental neutron physics programs, matrix elements of appropriate low-energy effective operators within neutron states must be precisely calculated. We present results from the QCDSF/UKQCD/CSSM collaboration for the isovector charges gT, gA and gS of the nucleon, Σ (Sigma) and Ξ (Xi) baryons using lattice QCD methods and the Feynman-Hellmann theorem. We use a flavour symmetry-breaking method to systematically approach the physical quark mass, using ensembles that span five lattice spacings and multiple volumes. We extend this existing flavour-breaking expansion to also account for lattice spacing and finite volume effects in order to quantify all systematic uncertainties. 2023/8/23 Dr. Catalina Curceanu (INFN) Testing Quantum Mechanics Underground in the Cosmic Silence: Quantum Collapse models and Pauli Exclusion Principle Violation We are experimentally investigating possible departures from the standard quantum mechanics’ predictions at the Gran Sasso underground laboratory in Italy. In particular, with refined radiation detectors, we are searching for signals predicted by the dynamical collapse models (spontaneous emission of radiation) which were proposed to solve the “measurement problem” in quantum physics, and signals indicating a possible violation of the Pauli Exclusion Principle.
I shall discuss our recent results which ruled out the natural parameter-free version of the gravity-related collapse model. I shall then present more generic results on testing CSL (Continuous Spontaneous Localization) collapse models and discuss future perspectives.
Finally, I shall briefly present the VIP experiment, with which we look for possible violations of the Pauli Exclusion Principle by searching for “impossible” atomic transitions, and comment on the impact of this research in relation to Quantum Gravity models.
I shall take this opportunity to stimulate discussions and collaborations with the strong Australian quantum community, also in the view of proposing similar experimental research at an underground physics laboratory in Australia.
2023/8/9 Dr. Jiajun Wu The Study of the Singularity of Single loop in Decay process The singularity of single loop may play an important role in the understanding of experimental data. For example, triangle singularity has been found to generate some special peaks in the invariant mass spectrum of final states. It will effect to extract resonance state. In this talk, we will provide a new geometric method to show how to extract the condition of singularity of single loop in decay process with triangle and box diagram. And then we will obtain a general condition for any number of intermediate particles. 2023/8/2 Dr. Catalina Curceanu (INFN) Kaonic atoms at the DAΦNE Collider in Italy: a strangeness Odyssey The low-energy QCD, the theory within the Standard Model describing the strong interaction, is still missing fundamental experimental result for allowing a breakthrough in its understanding. Among these experimental results, the low-energy kaon-nucleon/nuclei interaction studies are playing an important role, with an impact going from particle and nuclear physics to astrophysics (neutron stars and their equation of state).
Combining the excellent quality low-energy kaon beam delivered by the DAΦNE collider in Frascati (Italy) with new experimental techniques, as fast and very precise X ray detectors, like the Silicon Drift Detectors, we have performed unprecedented measurements in the low-energy strangeness sector in the framework of the SIDDHARTA Collaboration and are presently running the SIDDHARTA-2 experiment for very challenging kaonic atoms measurements, such as kaonic deuterium first measurement.
I shall introduce the physics of kaonic atoms, the experiments performed at DAΦNE and the very first results of the ongoing SIDDHARTA-2 run. I shall also discuss future plans.
The experiments at the DAΦNE collider represents a unique opportunity in the world to deliver fundamental experimental results to unlock the secrets of the QCD in the strangeness sector and contribute to better understand the role of strangeness in the Universe, from nuclei to the stars.
“Each man delights in the work that suits him best.” ― Homer, The Odyssey
2023/07/26 Josh Crawford Transverse Force Distributions in the Proton from Lattice QCD Transverse force tomography is a field still in its infancy and offers a new approach to our understanding of forces in quantum chromodynamics. Many studies focus on leading-twist (twist-2) observables from deep inelastic scattering, which often have single parton interpretations, such as the longitudinal momentum distribution of partons. In this study, we look at twist-3 matrix elements, which describe quark-gluon correlations. It is from these quark-gluon correlations that we can extract information about the transverse “Colour-Lorentz” force acting on the quarks. Lattice QCD provides a natural method for extracting the relevant off-forward matrix elements necessary for computing these forces. In this talk, I will provide some background on the theory behind this formalism, a summary of our exploratory lattice QCD calculation, and some new directions we’re heading in for the remainder of my PhD. 2023/07/19 Dr. Roger Horsley (Edinburgh) alpha_s from lattice QCD - the FLAG perspective 2023/04/05 Matthew Fewell Tackling a loose end: a proposal for a model-independent measurement of B-meson spin 2023/03/15 Meera Deshpande Master's completion review -
2022 seminar schedule and details
Date Presenter Topic 2022/11/02 Gabriel Collin Statistical inference of astrophysical point-sources 2022/10/19 Utku Can Lattice 2022 review 2022/09/21 Max Amerl MPhil work on hadron jets 2022/09/07 Various Cairns 3MT presentations; Tony Williams (Dark matter, SUPL and SABRE) 2022/08/10 Various Cairns 3MT presentations; and Peter Tandy, Wally Melnitchouk, Zhan-Wei Liu on academia 2022/06/29 A/Prof. Ross Young Precision measurements and Lattice QCD 2022/06/22 A/Prof. Claudia Szabo LGBTQIA+ Ally Training 2022/06/15 Dr. Irene Bolognino Status of the SABRE experiment 2022/06/01 Dr. Harish Potti Shedding light on a single truth quark 2022/05/11 Dr. George Stamatescu Dynamic mean field programming 2022/05/04 Prof. Paul Jackson A Career in Academia 2022/05/04 Dr. Laura Venuti (SETI) Colours of stellar youth - Dynamical evolution of young stars and their planet-forming disks across the wavelength spectrum 2022/04/14 Dr. Yong Zhao (Argonne) Lattice QCD Determination of the x-dependence of PDFs 2022/04/06 Dr. Dipan Sengupta How Valid Are Theories of Extra Dimensions? -
2021 seminar schedule and details
Date Presenter Topic 2021/12/15 Dr. Waseem Kamleh PaCER / EmPRiSM: The path to Exascale computing 2021/10/13 Various Senior PhD student updates 2021/08/04 Shanette de la Motte Diversity and Inclusion Activities of the Belle II Collaboration 2021/07/20 Mischa Batelaan / Tomas Howson / James Biddle Nucleon Form Factors from the Feynman-Hellmann Method in Lattice QCD / Direct Measurement and Renormalisation of Quark and Gluon Momentum Fractions in the Quenched Approximation / Centre Vortex Structure in 2+1 Flavour QCD 2021/07/07 Anna Mullin Network analysis for particle colliders 2021/06/23 Dr. Harish Potti Seeing a single top quark: Search for the associated production of a single top quark and a photon with the ATLAS experiment 2021/06/09 Melissa McIntyre A New Model for Dose-Response of Cells in Hadron Therapy 2021/05/26 Dr. Ryan Bignall (Swansea) Magnetic Polarisabilities from lattice QCD 2021/05/12 Prof. Tony Thomas Short-Range Correlations and the EMC Effect: via Nuclear Structure and Neutrino Stars 2021/04/28 Alec Hannaford Gunn Generalised parton distributions from lattice Feynman-Hellmann techniques
Honours colloquia
NUPP Honours students take part in the Department's Honours student colloquia series, giving staff and their fellow students an overview of their work.
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2024
Lula Abdirashid Ali : Charmed states and SU(3) flavour symmetry breaking
Jake Felix : Shining Light on The Dark Photon – A Portal into the Hidden Sector
Keith Kelley : Determination of FK/Fpi from Lattice QCD
Kael Kemp : Exploration of Higgs Physics at the Future Circular Collider
Alex Moulds : Finite Volume Effects in Lattice QCD
Finn Pelling : The Dark Matter Axion
Workshops and conferences
Over the last two-and-a-half decades, staff and students in the various NUPP areas have organised and participated in a large number of workshops and conferences.
These range from local or national events that include mainly Australian participants, to major international conferences involving hundreds of delegates. The history of these events provides a valuable insight into the progress of these investigations at Adelaide, the changes in local personnel over the years, and developments in the topics covered by this research.
In all of these, the NUPP administrative staff have provided tireless and invaluable assistance, and their contribution to the success of these events cannot be overestimated.
A list of events may be found here.
Beyond the Standard Model
NUPP researchers discuss the benefits that come from our close collaboration between theory and experiment that is engendered by the proximity between the CSSM and HEP (formerly the Adelaide node of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Particle Physics, CoEPP) within our department.
Contact us
Tel: +61 831 33533
Email: cssm@adelaide.edu.au
Location:
Room 126, Physics Building, North Terrace campus, University of Adelaide
Page author : Dr. Padric McGee