Interdisciplinary, Physics: Fully Funded PhD Scholarship in Theoretical Explorations On The Lattice with Orthogonal and Symplectic Group (TELOS): Toward the Exascale Frontier

High-Performance Computing is entering a revolutionary phase characterised by Exascale capabilities, with step-changes in technology enabling numerically intensive processes to answer outstanding foundational questions. To benefit from this revolution in full, it is of utmost importance to influence the related development with a highly ambitious scientific programme underpinned by robust Exascale-ready software.   

The TELOS collaboration, co-led by researchers at Swansea University and The University of Edinburgh, and with links in other Institutions in the United Kingdom, Taiwan, Korea, Austria and Japan, plays a central role in the study of new gauge theories that have the potential to address many of the STFC challenges in Frontier Physics, such as the origin of dark matter in the universe, and the nature of electroweak symmetry breaking and mass generation in the standard model. We developed state of the art (open source) software working on GPU- and CPU-based supercomputing architectures, and secured computing resources from the UK-based as well as International supercomputing facilities. The research programme is now entering its mature development phase, high precision measurements of new observables have become possible, that require a step change in performance of the parallel software used in lattice field theory calculations. The candidate will be allocated a research project sitting at the interface between lattice field theory and particle physics, tailored around their scientific skills and ambitions, and will be leading the development, testing, and benchmarking of new pre-exascale ready software that the candidate will use to study new physics scenarios. 

The student will join this world leading research programme, performing numerical studies of new strongly coupled field theories taking advantage of supercomputing resources at facilities based in Swansea, in the United Kingdom, and overseas. The student will perform the first extended, high precision numerical study of such models, computing their spectroscopy and phase structure, and benchmarking phenomenological applications at the crossover between particle physics and astrophysics. 

This joint PhD programme is co-hosted, co-financed and co-supervised between Swansea University and The University of Edinburgh. A mobility programme will allow the student to take advantage of scientific and training opportunities available at both Institutions. They will join a vibrant, diverse, international community, with established record of delivering excellence in research, training, and student supervision, and with extended international network of research collaborations, based at the Particle Physics and Cosmology Theory group at Swansea University, as well as at the School of Physics and Astronomy and the Higgs Centre for Theoretical Physics at The University of Edinburgh. 

Funding Comment 

This scholarship covers the full cost of tuition fees and an annual stipend at UKRI rate (currently £20,780 for 2025/26). 

Additional research expenses of up to £1,000 per year will also be available.  

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