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The University of Edinburgh: Particle Physics

Institution The University of Edinburgh View institution profile
Department School of Physics and Astronomy
Web https://www.ed.ac.uk/studying
Study type Research

Summary

Exploring nature at the tiniest scale, the Particle Physics group seeks to add to our understanding of the make-up of our universe.

By joining our research group, you will be following in the footsteps of our celebrated emeritus professor, Peter Higgs, whose groundbreaking Higgs mechanism has excited the world of physics for decades and has been the focus of operations at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN.

You will also have the opportunity to confer and work with some of the greatest minds in physics today, through our links with leading conferences and international facilities.

Our research group works in two areas:

  • Theory

  • Experiment

Particle Physics – Theory (PPT) This research concerns fundamental physics at all energy scales, from hadronic binding energy to the massive forces at play in the first instants of the universe’s existence.

We collaborate with leading facilities, such as the Large Hadron Collider at CERN and the WMAP and Planck satellites.

Our current research explores developments in both perturbative and non-perturbative field theory, renormalization theory and the application of quantum theory to other branches of physics, such as turbulence theory and condensed matter systems.

Particle Physics – Experiment (PPE) We look to understand the fundamental particles of nature and the interactions that govern their behaviour.

Our research aims to solve big problems at small scales:

  • explaining the dominance of matter over anti-matter through the study of CP violation

  • understanding the mechanisms of electroweak symmetry breaking that lead to the creation of mass

  • searching for new particles

  • discovering and characterising particle dark matter

  • exploring neutrino oscillations and interactions, neutrinos of astrophysical origin and understanding the mechanism by which neutrinos gain mass

To achieve these aims we are members of a number of experimental collaborations, including:

  • ATLAS

  • LHCb

  • LUX-ZEPLIN

  • XLZD

  • DarkSide-20k

  • MicroBooNE

  • SBND

  • DUNE

  • SuperNEMO

We therefore also have a strong team in our Advanced Detector Development Centre working on developing the technologies that make these large experiments possible. In addition, we are heavily involved in medical physics research, making use of our Particle Physics expertise, for example in PET imaging.

Doctor of Philosophy - PhD

Edinburgh University

Edinburgh. Extraordinary futures await.

The University of Edinburgh is one of the world's top universities, consistently ranked in the world top 50, and placed 34th in the QS World University Rankings 2026.

Our position as one of Britain’s leading research universities was reaffirmed by the results of the 2021 Research Excellence Framework (REF). The University of Edinburgh is one of the world’s top research-intensive universities, ranked 4th in the UK for research power (Times Higher Education, Overall Ranking of Institutions), with 90% of our research activity classified as world leading or internationally excellent in the 2021 Research …

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