Past Events
June 2026 | |
| Wed 3 Jun 2026 14:00 - 15:30 |  Centre colloquium - Claudia de Rham (Imperial College)Centre for Theoretical Physics and Astronomy Colloquium title: Positivity in the sky Abstract: I will discuss the subtle interplay between the understanding of the laws of Nature as we observe them or test them in our "everyday experiments", and their underlying embedding within an ultimate high energy completion. I will highlight how the notion of causality enables us to connect some of the laws of physics at low energy with their behaviour at much higher energy, and clarify how the notion of causality is manifested with gravity, a... |
May 2026 | |
| Wed 27 May 2026 14:00 - 15:00 |  Seminar: Dr Andrea Knue - Elusive romance of top-quark pairs observed at the LHC
Centre for Experimental Physics and Quantum Technology The top quark is the heaviest elementary particle known to date. With this very large mass come interesting consequences, like its extremely short lifetime. Unlike other quarks, which can form bound states, the top quarks lifetime does not allow for a stable bond. If two top quarks are produced almost at rest however, they can briefly exchange gluons before they then decay individually. This pseudo-bound state was already predicted in 1987, before the top quark was even discovered. It was... |
| Thu 21 May 2026 14:00 - 15:00 |  Graham Brown (Edinburgh)Centre for Theoretical Physics and Astronomy Title: Unexpected Symmetries of Kerr Black Hole Scattering Abstract: Recent years have seen considerable progress in computing scattering observables for spinning black holes at high PM orders, using both amplitude based and worldline methods. In this talk we will use these results to investigate the integrability properties of scattering Kerr black holes, both in the probe limit and beyond. We will begin by reviewing the radial action and the recently introduced Dirac bracket formalism,... |
| Wed 20 May 2026 14:00 - 15:00 | Seminar: Dr Chilufya Mwewa - Testing Electroweak Symmetry Breaking through Same-Charge WW Scattering at the LHC and beyond
Centre for Experimental Physics and Quantum Technology Within the Standard Model (SM) of particle physics, weak vector bosons are allowed to be massive as a result of the spontaneously broken electroweak symmetry which is said to have resulted from a phase transition of the Higgs potential in the early universe. Measurements of the scattering of weak vector bosons—referred to as Vector Boson Scattering (VBS)—provide a powerful probe of the electroweak interaction and offer insight into the mechanism of electroweak symmetry breaking. In this... |
| Wed 13 May 2026 15:00 - 16:00 | Seminar: Dr Ilham El Atmani - Neutrino–nucleus interactions and systematic uncertainties in next-generation oscillation experiments Centre for Experimental Physics and Quantum Technology The next generation of long baseline experiments, DUNE and Hyper-Kamiokande, aim to measure CP violation and mass ordering with high precision. However, the sensitivity of these experiments is currently limited by systematic uncertainties related to interactions between neutrinos and nuclei. In this talk, we will examine the impact of nuclear effects, in particular multi-nucleon correlations (2p2h) and final-state Interactions (FSI), on energy reconstruction and parameter extraction. We will... |
| Wed 6 May 2026 13:30 - 15:00 | Seminar: Prof Jeff Hartnell - LiquidO opaque scintillator detectors and the physics opportunities Centre for Experimental Physics and Quantum Technology Radiation detectors enable many aspects of our modern lives, from the light sensors in our smartphone cameras to PET scanners that inform treatment of cancer. Particle physicists have often led the development and exploitation of cutting edge radiation detectors to identify particles while measuring their energies, positions and directions. Many radiation detectors use scintillators, which traditionally have nearly always been transparent to allow detection of the light. Our new counter... |
| Wed 6 May 2026 15:00 - 16:00 | Seminar: CCMP seminar: Particle characterization through super-resolution spectral microscopy Centre for Experimental Physics and Quantum Technology Luis Bibiano will give a seminar: Particle characterization through super-resolution spectral microscopy - abstract below: Spectroscopic Single Molecule Localization Microscopy (sSMLM) is a far-field spectroscopic imaging technique which is capable... |
April 2026 | |
| Wed 22 Apr 2026 14:00 - 15:00 | Seminar: CANCELLED Dr Ilham El Atmani - Neutrino–nucleus interactions and systematic uncertainties in next-generation oscillation experiments Centre for Experimental Physics and Quantum Technology This event will no longer run, but will hopefully be rescheduled to a future date. |
| Wed 22 Apr 2026 14:00 - 15:30 | Centre colloquium: Ruth Gregory (King's College London) Centre for Theoretical Physics and Astronomy Title: Black Hole Spectroscopy from a Giant Quantum Vortex Abstract: Black-hole spectroscopy aims to infer physical properties of black holes by detecting the spectrum of quasi-normal modes (QNMs) they emit while settling towards equilibrium. Gravitational analogs aim to explore aspects of black hole systems by building laboratory experiments that share features of the black hole and its perturbations. A particularly interesting aspect of QNMs is the phenomenon of spectral instability: the... |
| Wed 15 Apr 2026 13:30 - 15:00 | Seminar: Dr Maria Violaris - Breaking the quantum status quo: from error correction to the multiverse
Centre for Experimental Physics and Quantum Technology Every so often, our beliefs about what's possible using quantum theory get overturned. I will overview two shifts in quantum error correction related to my work on building quantum computers at OQC: the ability to design hardware with built-in quantum error detection, and the surprising possibility of local error-correcting codes with high encoding rates. I will also summarise two thought experiments from my research in quantum foundations, which change our understanding of locality and... |
March 2026 | |
| Wed 18 Mar 2026 13:30 - 15:00 |  Seminar: Lex Millins - The MIGDAL experiment: Measuring a rare atomic process to aid the search for dark matter
Centre for Theoretical Physics and Astronomy Many dark matter experiments are exploiting the Migdal effect, a rare atomic process, to improve sensitivity to low-mass WIMP-like dark matter candidates. Following the recent first observation of the Migdal effect in nuclear scattering [1] the characterisation of the effect and measurements of the cross-section in a range of elements is of great importance to the DM community. The MIGDAL experiment aims to characterise the Migdal Effect in a range of species and test theoretical predictions of... |
| Mon 16 Mar 2026 14:00 - 15:00 | Seminar: Dr Supriya Pan - Probing New Physics Scenarios in DUNE Using Accelerator and Atmospheric Neutrinos
Centre for Experimental Physics and Quantum Technology The Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE) is a next-generation long-baseline neutrino experiment designed to determine the remaining unknown parameters of the standard three-flavor neutrino oscillation framework, including the octant of θ23, the neutrino mass hierarchy, and the CP-violating phase. In addition to its primary oscillation program, DUNE will provide a powerful platform to probe several physics beyond the Standard Model. In this talk, I will explore the sensitivity of DUNE to... |
| Wed 4 Mar 2026 13:30 - 15:00 | Seminar: ATLAS Muon Upgrade - Arisa Wada Centre for Theoretical Physics and Astronomy ATLAS Muon Upgrade - details to follow 13:30-14:00 - In person refreshments 14:00-15:00 - seminar |
| Wed 4 Mar 2026 15:00 - 16:00 | Seminar: CCMP Seminar Series. Dr Alston Misquitta: Symmetry-Adapted Relaxation Theory (SART): Exact theory of embedding and a new way of calculating interaction energies with infinite-order induction relaxation of the monomers
Centre for Experimental Physics and Quantum Technology Title: Symmetry-Adapted Relaxation Theory (SART): Exact theory of embedding and a new way of calculating interaction energies with infinite-order induction relaxation of the monomers Speaker: Dr Alston Misquitta (QMUL) Abstract: Symmetry... |
February 2026 | |
| Wed 18 Feb 2026 14:00 - 15:00 | Seminar: Chemistry Seminar Series - Dr Annina Lieberherr (Quantum Motion) Centre for Experimental Physics and Quantum Technology |
| Wed 11 Feb 2026 13:30 - 15:00 | Seminar: ATLAS Higgs - Chiara Arcangeletti Centre for Theoretical Physics and Astronomy ATLAS Higgs - details to follow 13:30-14:00 - In person refreshments 14:00-15:00 - seminar |