The University of Southampton

Our world-leading physics and astronomy research has had a huge impact on the discipline. Here is just a selection of our achievements.

The discovery of the Higgs boson at CERN – the European Organization for Nuclear Research has had a momentous impact on the foundations of physics and also inspires future generations of physicists. Our Theoretical Particle Physics Group collaborates closely with experimentalists at CERN to analyse these findings. Dr Andreas Jüttner of the Southampton group was recently awarded a £1m European Research Council grant for his studies in this area of physics.

The University of Southampton reinforced its leading role in radio-astronomy with a new LOFAR telescope, which expands our leadership in transient effects and the origins of the largest-scale magnetic fields in the universe. This work is supported by a second European Research Council grant for LOFAR in 12 months, awarded to Dr Anna Scaife, totalling Euro5m funding to date for LOFAR research at Southampton.

Researchers in Physics and Astronomy collaborate closely with their colleagues in Electronics and Computer Science and the Optoelectronics Research Centre to exploit the unique facilities offered by the Southampton Clean Room Complex.  This work in Physics and Astronomy has led to several new projects supported by the research councils. For instance the only two EPSRC Early Career Fellowships awarded in the UK were both awarded to academics in the Quantum, Light and Matter Group. Several of our graduates worked on projects in this group exploring the unusual physics of nano materials and manmade quantum systems.