The open day will be held as a hybrid meeting, online and in-person. UK-based students will be invited to come to RAL, while all others will be invited to participate online.
All participants (students & supervisors) should register. When registering, you can request accommodation for the night before the Open Day in the Cosener's House hotel (Abingdon, Oxfordshire) in which case it will be booked & paid for by our secretariat. Students will be reimbursed for their UK travel costs (by Emailing this form and a single photo of all their receipts to pappddirector@stfc.ac.uk ), but those who are abroad should participate via Zoom video-conferencing. We've booked taxis to take people from the hotel to RAL on the morning of 20th, leaving at 8:50am.
A map to help you travel to RAL is map_to_RAL . A map showing you the inside of the RAL site is map_inside_RAL . You must enter RAL via the Main Gate, from where we'll guide you to the correct venue. (If you have a car, park inside the RAL site).
During the morning, we'll all be together to attend talks about all the PhD projects. At RAL, this will be in the Pickavance Lecture Theatre (building R22), or you can join online via this PLENARY ZOOM LINK .
Lunch will be in CLF Visitor Centre in the basement of building R1. It will be followed by afternoon chats between individual students and the supervisors of their preferred projects in the Particle Physics Dept. (1st floor of building R1).
When the Open Day & chats are over, PhD applicants should fill in this SURVEY to let us know which of the PhD projects they would like to be considered for. (This can differ from your application, if you've changed your mind).
Afternoon chats:
Each PhD project will be assigned an individual discussion room in building R1 (& a Zoom room listed below if a remote PhD supervisor/student is joining). Each chat will be 28 mins long (+ 2 mins for students to move between rooms). Half this time is for the student to ask questions about the project and half is for the supervisors to ask questions to the student.
Chat Bookings
This CHAT SCHEDULE (which will be substantially edited & updated until 12:45 on 20th) shows which students will talk to supervisors in each time slot, All students have been booked into time slots already for the two projects their application said they preferred. During lunch, please Email ian.tomalin@stfc.ac.uk with title "CHAT", stating your family name and the any additional projects you want chats for, in decreasing order of preference. (e.g. Project 5, Project 1). I'll update the spreadsheet accordingly whilst free slots remain. If your name appears under "overflow", this means there's no free slot on 20th, but the supervisors will arrange a Zoom chat in the following day or two.
Applicants who have a free chat slot during the afternoon can go to PPD Exhibition Area (R1 1st floor) to talk to PPD staff/students about life at RAL. Or visit the R1 coffee lounge to relax.
Discussion rooms / Zoom links for each PhD project.
The physical rooms & Zoom links the individual discussions between students and supervisors are listed below. (Students joining via Zoom will enter a Zoom waiting room until the supervisors admit them). (The Zoom rooms & Doodle Pools for dates after 20th after for overflow, if we don't have time to talk to all students on 20th).
All discussion rooms are near the R1 coffee lounge and shown in this MAP .
Project 1: ATLAS electroweak precision physics & trigger software (PPD/UCL)
- In person room: Conference Room 27 (in R1 North wing)
- Remote Zoom links:
- 20th Feb.: https://ukri.zoom.us/j/98037877412
- 21st-23rd Feb.: https://ukri.zoom.us/j/99101645242 with Doodle Poll to sign up for chats on these dates.
Project 2: Search for new physics with the FASER experiment at the LHC & prospects at future experiments (PPD/Liverpool)
- In person room: Interview Room 2 (in R1 North wing)
- Remote Zoom link:
- 20th Feb.: https://ukri.zoom.us/j/99049625203
- Later dates: https://ukri.zoom.us/j/99049625203 . Email the project supervisors (Carl Gwilliam & Monika Wielers to arrange a time slot).
Project 3: New physics searches with LUX-ZEPLIN & development of next generation dark matter low background technologies at the Cold Radon Emanation Facility (PPD/KCL)
- In person room: Interview Room 1 (in R1 North wing)
- Remote Zoom link:
- 20th Feb.: https://ucl.zoom.us/j/99413916539
- 21st Feb.: https://ucl.zoom.us/j/99413916539 with Doodle poll to sign up for chats on this date.
Project 4: Investigations of the Migdal effect in elements relevant to dark matter searches using the MIGDAL experiment at the NILE/ISIS facility at RAL (PPD/Imperial)
- In person room: Conference Room 24 (in R1 North wing)
- Remote Zoom link:
- 20th Feb.: https://ukri.zoom.us/j/99327049397?from=addon
- 23rd Feb.: https://ukri.zoom.us/j/99327049397?from=addon + Doodle poll to sign up for chats on this date.
Project 5: Neutrinos as Evidence for Dark Matter & Novel Detector Technologies with LiquidO (PPD/Sussex)
- In person room: Conference Room 22 (in R1 North wing)
- Remote Zoom links:
- 20th Feb,: https://ukri.zoom.us/j/6564689563
- 22nd Feb: https://ukri.zoom.us/j/92809947290 + Doodle poll to sign up for chats on this date.
Project 6: Charting New Frontiers in Dark Matter Detection with Atom Interferometry (PPD/KCL)
- In person room: Office 1.42 (in R1 East wing)
- Remote Zoom link:
- 20th Feb.: https://ukri.zoom.us/j/98037877412
- 21st Feb.: https://ukri.zoom.us/j/95673478131 + Doodle Poll to sign up for chats on this date.
Informal chats with current RAL students/staff about any topic you like
- In person room: PPD Exhibition Room (in R1 East wing)
P.S. Spare rooms, if needed for any reason are 1.48 & 1.49 in R1 East wing.
