The theoretical particle physics research group at the University of Wales Swansea was established in 1992 in an unprecedented initiative in UK particle physics. This major new group was created with the arrival of two professors, Ian Halliday and David Olive, from Imperial College, together with five new lecturers. Since then the group has been further strengthened and currently numbers nine, making it the equal third largest particle theory group in the UK, but with a remarkably young age profile. It is supported by a major PPARC rolling grant, which together with further grants from the EU, the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales, the Royal Society, the Nuffield Foundation and the Leverhulme Trust, has enabled a large and lively assemblage of postdoctoral fellows, Ph.D. students and visitors.
The group's research interests cover a broad spectrum of topics in quantum field theory, string theory and elementary particle physics. At present major interests are: duality in supersymmetric gauge theories and string theory; gravitation and cosmology; QCD over a range of collision energies, temperatures and densities; and lattice field theory. The group benefits from a modern computing infrastructure, including a recently acquired APEMille special purpose machine for lattice QCD computations.
Research in particle physics is aimed at understanding the origin of the fundamental particles and interactions of Nature. In recent years, particle physics has developed close relationships with cosmology, especially in describing the very early universe, and with statistical mechanics and condensed matter physics, which share the common language of quantum field theory. A fruitful relationship has also emerged with modern mathematics, with an important exchange of insights between the two disciplines.
Particle physics enjoyed a period of tremendous success in the 60's and 70's with the formulation of the Standard Model, a unified description of all known interactions (except gravity) as the SU(3)c ×SU(2)L ×U(1) gauge theory incorporating quantum chromodynamics and the electroweak theory of Glashow, Salam and Weinberg. Nevertheless, many crucial questions remain, such as the nature of the symmetry breaking responsible for mass generation, the origin of the three generation structure of the quark and lepton spectrum and the mechanism which separates the scale of hadron and quark/lepton masses from the Planck scale. In addition, quantitative techniques for understanding strong coupling phenomena such as confinement, chiral symmetry breaking and the mass spectrum in gauge theories like QCD need to be further developed. Unification is a central theme in extensions of the Standard Model, with current theories focussing on the possible roles of supersymmetry and string theory in unified models including gravity.
Swansea theorists are active in all these areas, and a range of challenging research problems is offered to Ph.D. students. A comprehensive course of postgraduate lectures is also given on quantum field theory and string theory.
The current research interests of members of the group are summarised below (see also the Group members page):
Chris Allton Lattice gauge theory, especially weak matrix elements and decay constants for B and D mesons. Lattice cut-off effects and the continuum limit. Application of QCD Sum Rule techniques in analysis of lattice data. Studies of dynamical simulations.
Nick Dorey Electromagnetic duality in supersymmetric gauge theories. ADHM instantons and Seiberg-Witten theory. Solitons, monopoles and semi-classical methods in QFT. Skyrme model and large Nc QCD.
David Dunbar String theory techniques for efficient perturbative calculations in QCD and quantum gravity. String theory as a fundamental theory. T-duality.
Ian Halliday Lattice field theory and novel computational algorithms. Duality. Negative dimensional techniques in QFT.
Simon Hands Lattice field theory, including: phase transitions and dynamical symmetry breaking; renormalisation group fixed points; the role of topological excitations; simulations of dense matter.
Tim Hollowood Electromagnetic duality in supersymmetric gauge theories and strings. Dyons in N = 2 and N = 4 supersymmetric theories and Seiberg-Witten theory. Solitons, monopoles and semi-classical methods in QFT. Integrable field theories.
David Olive Electromagnetic duality. Monopoles and dyons. Solitons and integrable models, especially affine Toda theories. Applications of groups and algebras in QFT and string theory.
Warren Perkins Cosmic strings and cosmology, especially baryogenesis and microwave background fluctuations. Superconductivity and symmetry restoration in high-energy strings. Electroweak strings.
Graham Shore Renormalisation group, anomalies and geometry in QFT. Conformal symmetry, supersymmetry and duality. Quantum fields, gravity and black holes. U(1) anomaly and QCD phenomenology.
Current postdoctoral fellows and visitors, with their research interests, are:
Giuseppe Carlino Exact renormalisation group, duality, and supersymmetric field theory.
Stephen Davis Cosmology and the early universe, topological defects, brane world cosmology, superconductivity.
Prem Kumar Supersymmetric field theory and string theory.
Luigi Scorzato Lattice field theory, stochastic quantisation.
Annamaria Sinkovics String theory and Supersymmetric field theory.
Costas Strouthos Lattice field theory, models with T > 0, m > 0.
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