Gamma-Ray Spectroscopy of Exotic Nuclei

The Nuclear Physics Research Group at the University of the West of Scotland has a fully funded STFC PhD studentship available. The PhD studentship will join a research programme studying the structure of exotic nuclei, using gamma-ray spectroscopy techniques. Our research typically involves creating the nuclei of interest using nuclear reactions in the laboratory, induced by bombarding targets with energetic beams of ions from particle accelerators. One of our main interests is the study of reflection-asymmetric nuclei, which violate reflection symmetry and have a novel pear shape. Our research is carried out at overseas particle-accelerator laboratories such as JYFL (Jyväskylä, Finland), Legnaro National Laboratory (Padova, Italy) Argonne National Laboratory (Chicago) and ISOLDE-CERN (Geneva). The PhD project will involve helping to set up and run the experiments as well as the analysis of data from one or more of the experiments. As data analysis is an important part of the project, experience of scientific computing, particularly the Linux OS, or an aptitude for computing would be an advantage.