UCL DEPARTMENT OF PHYSICS AND ASTRONOMY PHYSICS AND ASTRONOMY Annual Review 2010 – 11 Contents 1 Introduction 2 Student Highlights and News 6 Alumni Matters 8 Careers with Physics and Astronomy Degrees 10 Physics and Astronomy Outreach 12 Staff Highlights and News 18 RESEARCH GROUPS 18 Atomic, Molecular, Optical and Position Physics (AMOPP) 21 High Energy Physics (HEP) 24 Astrophysics (Astro) 28 Condensed Matter and Materials Physics (CMMP) 31 Biological Physics (BioP) 33 Grants and Contracts 35 Publications 44 Staff Cover image: Structure of the light-harvesting antenna (LH2) isolated from photosynthetic purple bacteria Phaeospirillum molischianum. Pigments (in red and blue) are attached to a protein backbone (ribbons) and cooperate to absorb and transfer sunlight efficiently. Dr Alexandra Olaya-Castro and graduate student Edward O’Reilly are investigating the impact of variations in the protein composition on the energy transfer properties within and between LH2 complexes. PHYSICS AND ASTRONOMY ANNUAL REVIEW 2010–11 1 Introduction 2010 has been an exciting year for the Department of Physics and Astronomy due to a number of long-term, high- profile experiments beginning to harvest data. In some cases, members of the Department have been involved in the projects for many years: from the initial proposals to their current fruition. Among these include the HEP involvement in the ATLAS experiment on the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN; the Astro group’s participation in the Planck and Herschel satellites, jointly launched in 2009; and the discovery of ‘magnetricity’ by members of the CMMP group in late 2009. These projects are explained in detail in the research section of this review (starting page 18) and are indicative of the scientific excitement which has been maintained across the disciplines. This flow of results is set to continue with first light on the Dark Energy Survey (DES), in which the Astro group are playing pivotal roles in both the science and the instrumentation. These results are due late The number of PhD students we recruited On a personal level, I have been 2011, along with a number of other major during 2010 was also, by some distance, fortunate enough to be awarded a developments in the pipeline. a record. This was, in part, helped by the European Research Council Advance College’s Impact Studentship scheme Investigator Grant to run a project Every year I seem to report that our mentioned in last year’s Annual Review- entitled ‘ExoMol: molecular linelists for student recruitment remains buoyant; alumni may recall our appeal for co- exoplanets and other atmospheres’. This we received a record number of funding of supplementary PhD places, is due to start in 2011 for 5 years. If you undergraduate applicants last year which which is still in place. It is pleasing that are interested, a flavour of the project resulted in our largest ever first year we have been able to offer places to can be obtained from www.exomol.com. cohort. This is further swollen both by more of the well-qualified applicants who This is a major opportunity for me and the significant fraction of Natural Science approach us each year, PhD training is I have therefore decided to stand down students choosing majors from within the an activity in which we would like to grow as Head of the Department of Physics Department and students from outside further. and Astronomy at the end of the 2010/11 the Department taking our courses, academic year. As I write, the process of particularly those studying Physics I am delighted to congratulate Prof appointing a new Head of Department with Medical Physics, now admitted by Gabriel Aeppli, Quain Professor of is well underway. I wish my successor Engineering. While it is very pleasing to Physics in the Department and Director the best of luck with what can be a very welcome so many able and enthusiastic of the London Centre of Nanotechnology exciting job. physics students, it undoubtedly puts a (LCN), on his election as a Fellow of the strain on our resources. UCL has very Royal Society (see page 9). It is gratifying few large lecture theatres and those it that after a gap of twenty years, two has are heavily used; furthermore our members of the Department have been undergraduate laboratories are now elected FRS in successive years. I am catering for numbers significantly larger optimistic that our research successes than they were designed for. Similarly will lead to further elections in the not too extra students also places more demands distant future. on staff time. Professor Jonathan Tennyson FRS Head of Department 2 PHYSICS AND ASTRONOMY ANNUAL REVIEW 2010–11 Student Highlights and News Student Entry and Pass Figures for 2010 Student Prizes 2010 UNDERGRADUATE PRIZES Intake 32 Oliver Lodge Prize Cert. in Astronomy (Best performance 1st year Physics) Kaijian Xiao Halley Prize (Best performance 1st year Astronomy) Marco Rocchetto 49 153 PhD BSc/MSci C.A.R. Tayler Prize (Best 2nd Year Essay) Pierre Deludet 17 Wood Prize MSc/PgDip (Best performance 2nd year Physics) Arnold Mathijssen Huggins Prize (Best performance 2nd year Astronomy) Shaghayegh Parsa Awards David Ponter Prize (Most improved performance in Ord:1 2ii:3 3:3 Department, 2nd year) Carmen Thompson 1:12 Corrigan Prize 2ii:10 1:22 (Best performance in experimental work, 2i:15 2nd year – joint winners) Jonathan Pilcher & Giulio Pepe Best Performance 3rd Year Physics Maximilian Genske 2i:10 Bachelor of Science (BSc) Master in Science (MSci) Best Performance 3rd Year Astronomy Carl Salji Additional Sessional Prize for Merit (3rd Year) (Most improved 3rd Year) Alexander Glen 3 5 Distinction Distinction Burhop Prize 2 (Best performance 4th year Physics) Pass Solimon Edris Herschel Prize (Best performance 4th year Astronomy 10 Luke Peck Pass Brian Duff Memorial Prize Master of Science (MSc) Certificate of Higher (Best 4th Year project in the Department Education in Astronomy Alexander Dunning PHYSICS AND ASTRONOMY ANNUAL REVIEW 2010–11 3 William Bragg Prize Zainab Awad Filimon Gournaris (Best overall undergraduate) The Chemistry of Warm Cores in Low A Study of the Top Quark Production Sidney Tanoto Mass Star Forming Regions Threshold at a Future Electron-Positron (Supervisor: Dr S Viti) Linear Collider Tessella Prize for Software (Supervisor: Prof. M Wing) (Best use of software in final year Mandakranta Banerji Physics/Astronomy projects) Galaxies in the Distant Universe: Thomas Headen Jake Stinson Colours, Redshifts & Star Formation Asphaltene Aggregation on the (Supervisor: Prof. O Lahav) Nanoscale (Supervisor: Prof. N Skipper) POSTGRADUATE PRIZES Catrin Bernius Anna Holin Investigation of the Discovery Potential Electron Neutrino Appearance in the Harrie Massey Prize - - of a Higgs boson in the tt H, H→bb MINOS Experiment (Best overall MSc student) Channel with the ATLAS experiment (Supervisor: Prof. J Thomas) Sadi Ahmed (Supervisor: Dr N Konstantinidis) Bethan James Jon Darius Prize Wisdom Beyhum An Optical and Infrared Analysis of (Outstanding Postgraduate Research, Investigation of the Role of Magnetic Blue Compact Dwarf Galaxies Astronomy) Materials in Neurodegenerative Diseases (Supervisor: Prof. M Barlow) Shaun Thomas (Supervisor: Prof. Q Pankhurst) Matthew Kauer Carey Foster Prize Sarah Boutle Search for Double Beta Decay of Zr-96 (Postgraduate research, physics AMOPP) Beauty in Photoproduction at HERA II with NEMO-3 and Calorimeter Development Hannu Wichterich with the ZEUS Detector for the SuperNEMO Experiment HEP Group (Supervisor: Prof. M Wing) (Supervisor: Dr R Saakyan) (Postgraduate research, physics HEP) Benjamin Bryant David Koskinen Adam Davison Scanning Tunnelling Microscopy of MINOS Sterile Neutrino Search Marshall Stoneham Prize Bilayer Manganites (Supervisor: Prof. J Thomas) (Supervisor: Dr C Renner) (Outstanding postgraduate research, Jennifer Lardge physics CMMP) David Cooke Investigation of the Interaction of Water Tom Headen Positron Impact Ionization of Atoms and with the Calcite {10 Ī4} Surface Using Christiane Losert-Valiente Kroon Molecules Ab-Initio Simulation (Supervisor: Prof. G Laricchia) (Supervisor: Dr D Duffy) DEPARTMENTAL Daniel Credgington Stephen Leake TEACHING PRIZE Nano-scale Lithography and Microscopy Coherent X-ray Diffraction Imaging of Organic Semiconductors of Zinc Oxide Crystals Professor Ian Ford (Supervisor: Prof. F Cacialli) (Supervisor: Prof. I Robinson) PhD’S AWARDED Thomas Forrest Vyacheslav Lebedev Ordering and Dynamics of Strongly AC Driven Ratchets for Cold Atoms: Sabina J A Abate Correlated Transition Metal Oxides Beyond 1D Rocking Ratchets Measuring Cosmology from Dark (Supervisor: Prof. D McMorrow) (Supervisor Prof. F Renzoni) Universe (Supervisor Dr S Bridle) Robert Aldus Neutron Scattering Studies of Frustrated Magnets (Supervisor: Prof. S Bramwell) Lilly Asquith Using ATLAS to Investigate the Associated Production of a Higgs Boson with a Pair of Top Quarks (Supervisor: Dr N Konstantinidis) Carolyn Atkins Active X-ray Optics for the Next Generation of X-ray Space Telescopes (Supervisor: Dr A P Doel) 2010 prize winners 4 PHYSICS AND ASTRONOMY ANNUAL REVIEW 2010–11 Christiane Losart-Valiente External Research Awards Stochastic Population Dynamics in Astrochemistry and Aerosol Science Research Highlight (Supervisor: Prof. I Ford) Observation of Ultrahigh-Energy Sarah Malik Cosmic Rays with the ANITA Precision Measurement of the Mass Balloon-Borne Radio Interferometer and Width of the W Boson (Supervisor: Prof. M Lancaster) A. Connolly, R.J. Nichol & co-workers Dara McCutcheon