Interested students may contact the CDT Director for informal discussions and with enquiries.

Candidates should apply to the research group which best reflects their interests, indicating their interest in the CDT in their personal statement.

More information on how to apply to each group is available below:

• High Energy Physics
• Astrophysics
• Space and Atmospheric Physics
• Theoretical Physics

PhD opportunities

We have funded PhD places available for students to join the CDT in October in 2023. The possible projects are listed below.

SO:UK

SO:UK is the newly funded UK contribution to the Simons Observatory that is being deployed to the Atacama desert in Chile this year.

The Simons Observatory will map the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) sky to unprecedented levels of accuracy and resolution over the coming decade. The analysis of the data obtained by the Simons Observatory will reveal new details about the evolution of the Universe. Its results could transform our understanding of the fundamental physics of dark energy and dark matter, the physics of neutrinos, the distribution of matter in the Universe, and the theory of inflation. The UK will build LATs and SATs (Large and Small Aperture Telescopes) for the project. The collaboration involves several institutes that will see the UK take on full partner status in the international project.

SO:UK offers PhD opportunities involving the development and deployment of data-intensive analysis methods. Students will become experts in the theory and observation of the CMB. They will develop novel analysis methods targeting several stages in the analysis of SO data - from time domain data to the production of final science results.

There are opportunities for applying the latest machine learning and artificial intelligence methodologies to the project. As part of Imperial's Centre for Doctoral Training in Data Intensive Science, the studentship also offers the chance of an industrial placement where the expertise developed as part of the PhD can be transferred to applied areas.

For more information please contact Prof. Carlo Contaldi (c.contaldi@imperial.ac.uk).

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