Physics (3 Years) MPhil

Investigate fundamental physics using cutting-edge technologies in detectors and/or data analysis in fields such as artificial intelligence, renewable energy and sustainable technologies, innovative material, semiconductor and quantum sensors, and medical physics. As a member of the research groups, you’ll also be part of dedicated teams, often part of large international collaborations. Throughout your degree, you’ll be expected to work independently and demonstrate that you can plan and deliver a research project, with the support of at least two supervisors. During your first year, you’ll attend specialist courses provided by research-active staff members in each of the research groups. These will bring you up to the level required for frontline international research. You can also attend specialised summer schools financed by the Research Councils that fund the work. The new, original research that you produce during your PhD degree will be presented in a thesis (and possibly in peer-reviewed journal publications). Finally, you’ll defend your thesis in front of experts. Depending on your project, you may be able to live and work at international research facilities in UK or overseas. Many of the PhD students spend some time (between a few weeks and up to two years) at international research facilities in Europe, America or Japan. the students are given the possibility to attend and present their work at international conferences and publish in scientific journals. 6-month internships in industry may also be possible. The programme recommend that PhD students start this PhD on 1 October each year. I f ther e’s any reason you must start your PhD at a different time of the year, this can be negotiated. Research topics Typically, The programme welcome around 15-25 PhD students each year working on an original project relevant to one of the following research topics : Accelerator Science and Technology Frontier accelerators Novel accelerators Accelerator applications Antimatter research. Condensed Matter Physics Advanced Materials Chemical and electrochemical physics Imaging and medical diagnostics Solar Energy Conversion Advanced X-ray characterisation techniques. Nuclear Physics Pear-shaped nuclei Decay and structure of exotic nuclei Shell structure and deformation at ultrahigh spin Single-particle and collective excitations of unstable nuclei Laser spectroscopy of exotic nuclei Structure of superheavy nuclei Hadronic physics – ALICE experiment Applied nuclear physics for nuclear power, nuclear safety and decommissioning, medicine, and environment Detector development. Particle Physics Collider physics, energy frontier – ATLAS and FASER experiments and their upgrades (data analysis and/or detectors) Collider physics, flavour – LHCb experiment (data analysis and/or detectors) Direct Dark Matter detection experiments, present and future Neutrino Physics (Japan and US programmes) Precision muon physics Detector Research and Development (semiconductor, quantum sensors) Atom Interferometry and quantum science for fundamental physics. Physics Education Quantitative methods in physics education CUWIP-UK data analysis. Research culture the research is carried out across research clusters and throughout transversal activities focusing on cutting edge technologies in fields such as: Artificial intelligence Renewable energy and sustainable technologies Innovative materials, semiconductor and quantum sensors Medical physics. Thematic seminar series run throughout the year, attended by both PhD students and staff. Occasionally, you may be embedded in a bigger experimental team whose members may be external to the University, depending on your project. There are projects that require students to spend significant amount of time (usually up to 1 year) at a facility or facilities outside Liverpool, eg CERN (Switzerland), Fermilab (USA). In those cases, this will be discussed before the offer of a position at the University. All students participate and present in Liverpool research group meetings, as well as in conferences. The programme have an active portfolio grant of £49 million as of March 2025 (not including co-Principal Investigator on projects led by other departments). Research groups Accelerator Physics Condensed Matter Physics Nuclear Physics Particle Physics Physics Education Research . Doctoral Training Programmes The Liverpool Centre for Doctoral Training for Innovation in Data Intensive Science (LIV.INNO) EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training (CDT) in Skills and Training Underpinning a Renaissance in Nuclear (SATURN) (co-delivered with Manchester, Lancaster, Leeds, Liverpool, Sheffield and Strathclyde). 100% of research classified world-leading (4*) or internationally excellent (3*) (Research Excellence Framework, 2021) Top 10 in the UK for research outputs and joint 7th in the UK for research environment, based on GPA (Research Excellence Framework, 2021) 98.2% of the output has been classified as 4* (53.2) or 3* (45) (Research Excellence Framework, 2021)