Annual Gathering 2018

Date: Wednesday 6 June 2018

Venue: RBS Conference Centre, Gogarburn, Edinburgh

PROGRAMME

SUPA is pleased to announce the 2018 SUPA Annual Gathering and Exhibition. The Gathering has built a reputation as the showcase for the latest advances in physics research from across Scotland and beyond. All SUPA PhD students and PDRAs are especially invited to attend this year; as well as highlighting latest results, the programme will offer a focus on career opportunities for early career researchers. The Gathering will incorporate:

• Research highlight talks from researchers who have won personal research fellowships (e.g. RSURF, RSE, RCUK and university Research Leadership appointments),
• A poster competition for graduate students and a number of selected talks from current PhD students,
• A panel session on “Entrepreneurship and Intrapreneurship for Physicists" supported by an exhibition of physics impact.

Keynote speaker

We are very fortunate this year to have Neil Turok (PhD Imperial College London, 1983), Director and Niels Bohr Chair at the world-renowned Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Ontario, Canada as our Keynote speaker. Previously, he was Reader at Imperial, Professor of Physics at Princeton and Chair of Mathematical Physics at Cambridge.
Turok’s research focuses on developing and testing cosmological theories. His predictions for the correlations of the polarization and temperature of the cosmic background radiation (CBR) and of the galaxy-CBR correlations induced by dark energy have been confirmed at high precision. He has pioneered detailed investigations of many theoretical proposals, including cosmic strings, “single-bubble” inflationary universes - the basis of the multiverse paradigm - as well as cyclic universe scenarios.Born in South Africa, Turok founded the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences (AIMS) which operates centres of excellence for postgraduate training and research in South Africa, Senegal, Ghana, Cameroon, Tanzania, and Rwanda. For his discoveries and his work building AIMS, Turok was awarded a TED Prize in 2008. In 2012, he delivered the CBC Massey Lectures, broadcast across Canada and published as The Universe Within, a prizewinning bestseller. In 2016 he was awarded an Honorary Fellowship of the UK Institute of Physics, the John Torrence Tate Medal of the American Institute of Physics for International Leadership in Physics as well as the John Wheatley Award from the American Physical Society.

Keynote Talk: Quantum Universe

Observations reveal the cosmos to be astonishingly simple, and yet deeply puzzling, on the largest accessible scales. Why is it so nearly symmetrical? Why is there a cosmological constant (or dark energy) and what fixes its value? How did everything we see emerge from a singular “point” in the past? Many lines of evidence now point to a quantum beginning, in which spacetime itself was governed by quantum laws. Hitherto, it has been assumed that such a beginning necessarily required cosmic inflation, and ad hoc ingredients including an initially dominant “inflaton” field. Recently, using powerful new mathematical techniques, Turok and colleagues have proven these proposals to be mathematically inconsistent. More excitingly, they now have a glimpse of a far more minimal and predictive, “causa sui” cosmology. Exciting consequences include the simplest-yet explanation of the nature of dark matter - it consists of heavy, right-handed partners of the observed left-handed neutrinos. A tentative experimental confirmation will be described.

SUPA Research Highlight Presentation

Illuminating Nuclei for Neutron Stars Prof Daniel Watt, University of Edinburgh

SUPA Early Career Researcher Highlights

Understanding our star and solar flares using X-ray and ultraviolet observations Dr Natasha Jeffrey, University of Glasgow
High-dimensional entanglement: a personal journey Dr Lucia Caspani, University of Strathclyde
From MeV to TeV: event simulation and model-fitting at the LHC and beyond Dr Andy Buckley, University of Glasgow
Optical sensing and manipulation for physico-chemical and biomedical applications Dr Stella Corsetti, University of St Andrews
Soft materials for energy applications Dr Job Thijssen, University of Edinburgh

SUPA Poster Competition

The Annual Gathering includes a poster session with a prize for the best poster. Delegate voting is here or there is QR code link on the programme.

Prior registration is required via Eventbrite.