PhD Studentship on the SBND Neutrino Experiment

Applications are invited from talented and creative students for a PhD place in Experimental Particle Physics, to join the Sussex group working on the SBND experiment under the supervision of Dr Clark Griffith. A number of experiments have shown anomalies in neutrino oscillation results, hinting at a possible additional neutrino state beyond the three present in the Standard Model. The Short Baseline Neutrino (SBN) programme at Fermilab aims to settle the question of whether or not the anomalies are real or not, with a set of three large liquid argon TPC neutrino detectors: ICARUS, MicroBooNE, and the Short Baseline Near Detector (SBND). SBND began taking physics data recently and is poised to publish first results imminently. In this project you will have the opportunity to analyse new SBND data towards searches for Beyond the Standard Model signatures. The liquid argon detection technology used in SBND is also the basis for the DUNE experiment currently under construction. DUNE will make use of the world's most intense neutrino beam generated at Fermilab, which will travel to a far detector 1300 km away in the Sanford Lab in South Dakota, which will use tens of kilotons of liquid argon as the detector medium. The analysis techniques used in SBND will also be applicable to DUNE and the project will also involve studying the physics reach of DUNE and contributing to the installation of this next generation experiment. The studentship provides fully-paid tuition fees for three and a half years, a tax-free bursary for living costs (£20,780 per annum in 2025/26), and additional financial support to cover short-term and long-term travel.