PhD Opportunities
Construction and Exploitation of the CHIPS Experiment
We have 2 studentships available on the CHIPS experiment, both potentially starting immediately and available for EU students. The CHIPS project will deploy a 5-10kt water Cherenkov detector in the NuMI beam in summer 2018. It is a novel detector containing an isolated volume of water submerged in a flooded quarry in the path of the neutrino beam coming from FNAL. The physics goal is to make an independent measurement of theta13 and contribute to the world knowledge on deltaCP and the mass-heiararchy : as yet unknown parameters in the relatively new field of neutrino oscillation measurements. Most importantly, if successful it will prove the principle of a vastly cheaper, and therefore much larger volume detector capability for deployment in the new LBNF beam to be constructed at FNAL, leading to results on a vastly faster time scale than presently possible for neutrino oscillation measurements. The scope of the project spans hardware construction, commissioning and data analysis within time scale of the studentship. This is a very unusual opportunity for a student to get a full 360 degree look at a particle physics experiment including a front line seat on the analysis which should lead to numerous postdoc opportunities in the neutrino oscillation field. For questions about CHIPS PhD studentships please contact Prof. Jenny Thomas.