Open Research Opportunities for 2025 onward
PhD supervisors and projects for fully funded studentships in the IPPP beginning in October 2025 are listed below.
See here for information on how to apply for a studentship in particle theory, under the rubric of the Centre for Particle Theory (CPT). Please apply through the physics department if the projects listed below are your main interest (the IPPP is the particle theory division of the Durham physics department). However, because of the connection between physics and maths through the CPT, all particle theory applications are considered independently by both physics and maths, regardless of which department the application is made to..
Postgraduate Research projects beginning in October 2025
Machine Learning for phenomenological applications
Machine Learning techniques have seen a massive rise in popularity and their use has permeated a very wide range of applications in many scientific, commercial and societal fields. The rapid development of new techniques, algorithms, software and dedicated hardware has created a multitude of new opportunities. While Machine learning has played a crucial role initially in the analysis of particle physics data, more recently, ML algorithms have found a multitude of applications in more theoretical aspects of particle physics.
Possible PhD project include the development of reliable emulators for complicated higher order calculations, applications of ML algorithms to Monte Carlo integration optimization or the application of modern density estimation techniques to particle physics cross sections.
Supervisor: Daniel Maitre
Precision calculations for present and future colliders
After the successful completion of Run I and II of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) the much anticipated discovery of signals of beyond-the-Standard-Model physics is still lacking. Precision tests scrutinising the Standard Model are of prime importance in its physics programme, now and in the foreseeable future. At the same time new physics searches are looking for increasingly small signals demanding more precise estimates of the Standard Model backgrounds. Run III, having commenced recently, and the High-Luminosity upgrade thereafter, will further increase the available luminosity, enlarging the statistical prowess of the recorded data in most physics regions of interest. This expansion of sensitivity in both precision measurements and new physics searches in the multi-TeV region necessitates an immense improvement of the accuracy of theoretical predictions.
Further, strongly interacting new physics signals have been largely excluded by now, putting an emphasis on weakly interacting models and their electroweak Standard Model backgrounds. This is not only true for ongoing precision LHC measurements, but all the more so for all proposed future e+e− colliders. Lacking the vast energy range of a hadron collider they focus, in one form or another, on measurements with unprecedented precision to probe the Standard Model and, possibly, expose any deviations from its predictions.
The research performed in this PhD aims to provide precision calculations for relevant processes and observables at the LHC and future colliders that are necessary to contrast and test the predictions of our current best theory, the Standard Model, against the expected high-precision experimental data. In consequence, contribution from new physics not contained in the Standard Model to such processes and observables can be analysed and interpreted either as discoveries or more and more stringent exclusion limits.
Supervisor: Marek Schoenherr
Phenomenology of Quark Flavour Transitions
The Standard Model (SM) is the most successful theory that has ever been constructed. However, we know for very solid reasons that its description of nature is incomplete — physics beyond the Standard Model (BSM) must exist. Flavour physics and CP violation provide powerful probes for BSM physics that are sensitive to very high energy scales beyond direct detection experiments. Right now, experiments are seeing several anomalies in flavour physics observables, i.e. signs for possible deviations from SM predictions. An important goal for theoretical flavour physics is to determine if such anomalies are due to insufficiently understood QCD effects, or genuine BSM physics. To achieve this goal, we need new paths to control non-perturbative physics. This will remove major obstacles for the discovery of BSM physics and at the same time allows for precision probes of CKM matrix elements.
In your PhD project you will work on the phenomenology of quark flavour transitions, contributing to new and more precise ways to overconstrain the unitarity triangle. This includes for example improved theoretical predictions of CP violating observables or the extraction of elements of the CKM matrix with unprecedented precision, enabling the full exploitation of current and future data from experiments like Belle II at KEK and LHCb at CERN.
Supervisor: Stefan Schacht
Perturbative Quantum Field Theory at the Precision Frontier
One of the main goals of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) and planned future high-energy colliders, such as the upcoming HL-LHC, and proposed FCC-ee and FCC-hh, is the precision exploration of the Higgs sector. Obtaining precise measurements of the Higgs properties and couplings will either yield clear hints towards new physics, in the form of discrepancies between the predictions of the Standard Model and experiments, or provide strong constraints on models of new physics. This work is essential for furthering our knowledge of the universe at the smallest scales.
The success of this experimental program relies on the availability of precise theoretical predictions for the relevant signal and background processes. My proposed research consists of computing the state-of-the-art scattering amplitudes required to produce these predictions and developing the tools and techniques required to do so. Relying on recent developments in the computation of 2-to-3 scattering amplitudes and breakthroughs in our understanding of the structure of Feynman integrals in parameter space, the goal of this project is to obtain complete phenomenological results for some of the most important Higgs boson production channels at hadron colliders.
The proposed project consists of two complementary research directions:
1. Producing the most precise phenomenological predictions for key processes in the Higgs sector by computing key 2-to-3 scattering amplitudes, addressing mass scheme uncertainties, and adapting ongoing calculations of Higgs boson pair production and Higgs boson production in association with a jet for effective field theory analyses.
2. Elucidating the structure of scattering amplitudes in parameter space by exploring recent breakthroughs in our understanding of the expansion of Feynman integrals and how to efficiently compute them in parameter space.
The tools and techniques, which will be made available in public software packages, and the understanding developed during this research apply to the computation of general multi-scale multi-leg massive amplitudes. The output of this research therefore has the potential to play an important role in future calculations targeting hadron and lepton colliders.
Supervisor: Stephen Jones
Theories of light new physics
Our best understanding of the inner working of the Universe demands that Dark Matter contributes about 80% of the total mass of the Universe, shaping its form at all astronomical scales. However, the composition of Dark Matter in terms of fundamental particles remains a puzzle and all attempts to solve it through measurements or direct observation have failed to date.
Established experiments have focussed on searches for Dark Matter that scatters off heavy atoms in deep underground labs, assuming it behaves like slowly moving particles. This type of Dark Matter is called Weakly Interacting Massive Particle (WIMP) and its mass is a multiple of the proton mass.
For Dark Matter masses below the mass of a Carbon atom the momentum of the slowly moving WIMPs drops below the recoil threshold of the heavy nuclei used in these experiments and it cannot be detected anymore. We will work on theories describing light dark matter and develop new experimental methods to discover it ranging from collider to quantum sensor experiments. This research has significant overlap with other potential low-energy targets such as relic neutrinos, produced only one second after the Big Bang.
Supervisor: Martin Bauer
