Biosciences, Geography and Physics: Fully Funded PhD in The Theoretical Explorations on The Lattice with Orthogonal and Symplectic Group (TELOS): Toward The Energy Frontier

Key Information

Funding provider(s): 50% Faculty of Science and Engineering, Swansea University, 50% School of Physics and Astronomy, The University of Edinburgh. 

Subject area(s):

School: Biosciences, Geography and Physics, Mathematics and Computer Science (interdisciplinary)

Department of Physics

Department of Mathematics

Project start date(s)

• 1 October 2025 (Enrolment open from mid-September)

Supervisors:

A (Primary): Maurizio Piai (Physics, Swansea University) 

B (Secondary): Biagio Lucini (Maths, Swansea University)

C (Secondary): Ed Bennett (Maths, Swansea University)

D (External): Luigi Del Debbio (School of Physics and Astronomy, The University of Edinburgh)

Aligned programme of study: PhD in Physics

Joint Programme Swansea University-The University of Edinburgh, indicatively students will spend half of the time in each. 

Project Description: 

Theories with orthogonal and symplectic groups offer a new theoretical environment to address open problems in fundamental physics. Applications encompass electroweak symmetry breaking, mass generation, dark matter, and the relic density of stochastic gravitational waves, STFC challenges in Frontier Physics. 

The TELOS collaboration, co-led by researchers at Swansea University and The University of Edinburgh, and with links in other Institutions in the United Kingdom, Taiwan, Korea, Austria and Japan, plays a central role in the study of such theories.

We developed state-of-the-art (open source) software working on GPU- and CPU-based supercomputing architectures, and secured computing resources from the UK-based as well as international supercomuting facilities. The research programme is now entering its mature development phase, and high-precision measurements of new observables have become possible. The candidate will be allocated a research project in lattice field theory, tailored around their scientific skills and ambitions, addressing one or more of the aforementioned challenges in frontier physics.

The student will join this world-leading research programme, performing numerical studies of new strongly coupled field theories taking advantage of supercomputing resources at facilities based in Swansea, in the United Kingdom, and overseas. The student will perform the first extended, high-precision numerical study of such models, computing their spectroscopy and phase structure, and benchmarking phenomenological applications at the crossover between particle physics and astrophysics. 

This joint PhD programme is co-hosted, co-financed and co-supervised between Swansea University and The University of Edinburgh. A mobility programme will allow the student to take advantage of scientific and training opportunities available at both Institutions. They will join a vibrant, diverse, international community, with an established record of delivering excellence in research, training, and student supervision, and with an extended international network of research collaborations, based at the Particle Physics and Cosmology Theory group at Swansea University, as well as at the School of Physics and Astronomy and the Higgs Centre for Theoretical Physics at The University of Edinburgh.

The candidate interested in this opportunity might also be interested in the project Theoretical Explorations on the Lattice with Orthogonal and Symplectic group (TELOS): toward the Exascale Frontier. 

We encourage interested candidates to submit a formal application to both studentships.  

Funding Details

Funding Comment

This scholarship covers the full cost of tuition fees and an annual stipend of £19,237.

Additional research expenses of up to £1,000 a year will also be available.

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