Jobs and Theses

Open Postdoc and PhD positions will be announced on Inspire, but please do not hesitate to contact me at any point if you are interested in working on topics that fit the profile of the group.

If you are a student interested in pursuing a Bachelor- or Master project in our group, please contact Frank Siegert to discuss topics you could be interested in. Since the group is working at the interface between (particle physics) experiment and theory there will be a broad spectrum of options for such projects, be it related to measurements with the ATLAS detector at CERN, or theory simulation for such collisions, or even more technical work about Monte Carlo methods.

For Bachelor/Master students: Slides from the Institute Introduction January 2021 (German)

A listing of potential topics for Bachelor/Master theses is provided here:

Example topics for theses at the Bachelor or Master level

• Photon pair measurements with the ATLAS detector

  • Skills required and/or acquired:

    • Linux/command line

    • Python or C++ programming

    • Basic concepts of particle detectors

  • "Designing and testing new photon isolation criteria"

  • "Binning optimisation for doubly-differential observables"

• Monte Carlo predictions for photon pair production

  • Skills required and/or acquired:

    • Linux/command line

    • C++ or Python programming

    • Differential cross sections

    • Matrix elements and Feynman diagrams

    • Perturbation theory

  • "Phenomenological Monte Carlo studies of photon pairs in association with heavy-flavour jets"

    • Understand SM H(yy)H(bb) analysis and potentially BSM->HH searches (boosted -> merged b-jets)

    • Write Rivet analysis for typical analysis observables/cuts

    • Generate background predictions with LO+PS, NLO+PS, MEPS@NLO, fusing

    • Learn about statistics of limit setting

  • "Loop-induced diphoton production"

  • "Designing and testing new photon isolation criteria"

  • "Implementation and validation of analytical fragmentation functions for photon production in a Monte Carlo simulation"

• Efficiency improvements in Monte Carlo algorithms

  • Skills required and/or acquired:

    • Linux/command line

    • Python programming

    • Monte Carlo & machine learning (AI) algorithms

  • "Test machine-learning based MC unweighting in different final states"

    • Potential test-case: gg->4l+j with mll>2

  • "Integration methods based on parton shower principles"

• Monte Carlo predictions for unstable particles at the next-to-leading order

  • Skills required and/or acquired:

    • Linux/command line

    • Perturbation theory

    • Strong interaction

  • "Beyond LO accuracy for decay cascades: NLO+PS matching or ME corrections in hard decay handler"

  • "Higgs -> 4 leptons decay improvements"

    • QED/QCD effects

    • Compare/interface Prophecy4f

  • "Phenomenological study of different evolution variables in resonance-aware calculations"

  • "Adapting process-specific resonance algorithms to other processes"

• Other topics on Monte Carlo theory predictions
  • "Implementation of more accurate matrix elements for hadron and tau decays"
  • "Study of the behaviour of local NLO K-factors in processes with 'giant K-factors' like WZ production"
  • (possibly in cooperation with the ATLAS VBS group of Michael Kobel)
  • "Phenomenlogical study of jet mass distributions" (Bachelor only)
    • Predictions with Sherpa
    • Comparison to analytical results from Salam + Dasgupta
    • Impact of non-perturbative physics, like MPI (massless/massive?), primordial kT, ...
  • "Colour algebra calculator" (Bachelor only)
  • "Tree-level amplitudes in the spinor/helicity and MHV formalisms" (Bachelor only)
  • "Inclusive Z+jets clustering and Z[ll]Z[bb]-like configurations"

More information about theses in our institute can be found at this website.

Finished Bachelor theses

Finished Master theses