We have two experimental projects that just begun their main data-taking periods. The ATLAS group is actively seeking new students to join the experiment. The ATLAS group at Toronto is now actively involved in all areas of analysis of the early LHC data, including studies of the newly discovered Higgs boson. There are immediate openings for students who want to get involved in upgrade and refurbishing our pieces of the ATLAS detector. This would put them in a great position to use data from higher energy running, that will start in 2014, for their thesis work. The T2K project is studyig neutrino oscillations by measuring a beam of neturinos within a km of their production at an accelerator complex at Tokai (the "T") on the east cost of Japan and again several hundred km away in a large underground water Cerenkov detecto in the Kamioka mine (the "K") in the Japanese alps. Canadian collaborators, including the University of Toronto, are now analysing the data from early running and tackling systematic uncertainties seen to further improve precision as data-taking continues through the end of the decade. More information on all the graduate student opportunities can be found in this flyer
A PhD in experimental particle physics provides and education in a wide range of disciplines. Experience is gained with a wide array of particle detectors, many of which find applications outside particle physics, for example in medical imaging. The data acquisition rates typically involve high speed, dedicated electronics and massive data transfer rates rivaled only by major telecommunications networks. The development of the world wide web was a spin-off from high energy physics research needs. Work on the international collaborations provides experience interacting in large groups of people. A flavour of what we are up to in each of the experiments have a look at the following one page summaries of our current and immediately past projects (ATLAS, CDF and ZEUS). You might also be interested in a talk that was given to incoming graduate students.
To give prospective students a flavour of what they might be doing if they were to pursue a graduate degree in experimental particle physics we list our current students below. In order to highlight some of the diversity that results from an education in high energy physics we list some of the former graduate students and indicate what they are doing now.
