Global Particle Physics Conference to take place in Southampton in 2016

One of the leading global conferences on particle physics will be held at the University of Southampton in July 2016.

The annual ‘International Symposium on Lattice Field Theory’ brings together a global community of researchers from theoretical particle physics and quantum field theory, who employ numerical and computational methods to study the properties of strongly interacting physical systems - above all Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD), the theory which describes the interactions of quarks and gluons. The Symposium is returning to the UK for the first time since 1997, when it took place in Edinburgh, and has never before been held in England.

The 2016 Symposium will take place at the University of Southampton’s Highfield Campus, and the Conference Chair is Professor Chris Sachrajda, FRS. "It is a great honour to be able to bring the annual Lattice Field Theory Symposium to Southampton," he said, "especially since the Southampton Lattice QCD group, currently led by Professor Jonathan Flynn, Dr Andreas Jüttner and myself, has been at the centre of developments since the early days of the subject in the 1980s."

He continues: "It was a particular pleasure that the 2012 Kenneth Wilson Prize, announced at the annual lattice symposium, was awarded for the thesis work of Southampton PhD student Elaine Goode, performed in collaboration with colleagues from Edinburgh, Columbia University and the Brookhaven National Laboratory."

Over 500 theoretical and computational physicists from all parts of the globe will visit Southampton between 24 and 30 July 2016 to discuss the latest progress in lattice field theory and to set the agenda for future research. The 25 or so invited plenary lecturers will review the status of the main areas and will be complemented by about 400 parallel talks and posters containing more specialised material as well as a public lecture which will convey the excitement of the conference beyond the particle physics community.

Professor Bashir Al-Hashimi, Dean of the Faculty of Physical Sciences and Engineering, commented: "We very much look forward to welcoming the global particle physics community to the University in 2016. It is an excellent indication of the significant and longstanding research carried out here in our School of Physics and Astronomy that this International Symposium is coming to Southampton for its first visit to England".