Many congratulations to Professors Alexander Belyaev and Stefano Moretti from our School of Physics and Astronomy who have been honoured with the prestigious 2025 Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics as members of the CMS collaboration.
The award celebrates landmark contributions to our understanding of the universe, specifically for detailed measurements of Higgs boson properties. The CMS (Compact Muon Solenoid) collaboration is one of four major experimental teams at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland recognised this year.
Professors Belyaev and Moretti contribute to the CMS experiment through their long-standing collaboration with the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, advancing particle physics at the interface of theory and experiment. The work has been enabled by the NExT Institute, co-founded by the University of Southampton and RAL, which supports pioneering research in theoretical and experimental particle physics.
Dr Marcus Newton, from the School of Physics and Astronomy, has been awarded a Future Leader Fellowship Renewal from UKRI. His project, “Multifunctional Materials Imaging of Nanoscale Devices in Three Dimensions” (MIND-3D), aims to advance the study of multiferroic quantum materials and devices.
Multiferroics exhibit properties like electricity, elasticity, and magnetism. Dr. Newton’s research focuses on developing low-power neuromorphic memory devices and integrated circuits, which could be over 100 times more energy-efficient than current technologies, potentially reducing our dependence on fossil fuels.
“There is considerable potential for new technologies to be developed and commercialised that utilise the novel properties of multiferroics,” says Dr. Newton.
To achieve these goals, Dr. Newton’s team will use Bragg coherent diffraction imaging (BCDI), a sophisticated X-ray microscopy technique that enables high-resolution, three-dimensional imaging at the nanoscale without the need for focusing lenses.
Dr Newton’s Future Leaders Fellowship Renewal award from UKRI is for £708,075.
Continuing with Fellowship news, Dr Lucy Oswald, Lecturer, in the School of Physics and Astronomy has been awarded a Stephen Hawking Fellowship under the EPSRC Postdoctoral Fellowships.
This prestigious fellowship will fund a three-year research project titled “The pulsar population: revealing the extreme physics of neutron stars at the intersection of statistics, citizen science, and machine-learning.”
The research aims to uncover how pulsars form, evolve, and behave, and how they can be used to probe fundamental laws of physics and the universe’s invisible structures. The project will involve a citizen science initiative to classify pulsar observations, a study of the Milky Way’s structures and magnetic properties, and the application of machine-learning to analyse pulsar data.
With a background in studying pulsar radio emissions and the interstellar medium, Lucy Oswald previously worked at Magdalen College, Oxford, and joined Southampton as a Lecturer in AI and Data Science in Astronomy in September 2024. The project will commence in July 2025.
The University is delighted to announce that Dr Philip Wiseman, a physics and astronomy researcher, has been awarded the esteemed Ernest Rutherford Fellowship. This prestigious award recognises and supports the most promising early-career researchers in the UK, enabling them to advance their careers and make groundbreaking discoveries in their fields.
Dr Wiseman's research focuses on unravelling the mysteries of cosmic explosions, the most energetic events in the universe. These explosions signal the deaths of stars and the growth of supermassive black holes. Recent telescope surveys have revealed a handful of exceptionally bright and long-lasting flares emanating from these black holes, unlike anything previously observed. The cause and nature of these flares remain a puzzle.
Through the Ernest Rutherford Fellowship, Dr Wiseman will embark on a mission to identify and analyse hundreds of these gigantic flares. He will utilise data from advanced telescopes to measure their properties, including temperature, size, and chemical composition. This comprehensive analysis aims to shed light on these flares' origin and impact on the galaxies in which they reside.
Dr Wiseman's research extends beyond black hole flares, encompassing supernovae, the spectacular explosions of stars. He is particularly interested in understanding the variations in brightness observed in certain white dwarf supernovae, depending on the type of galaxy they occur in. By leveraging innovative simulation techniques and data from the same powerful telescopes, he strives to uncover the root cause of this phenomenon and its implications for our understanding of the universe's composition.
Dr Wiseman's academic journey began with an MPhys degree from Durham University, followed by a PhD from the Max-Planck-Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics in Germany. In 2017, he joined the University of Southampton for a postdoctoral research position and became a leading researcher. He actively contributes to the Dark Energy Survey and the 4MOST collaboration.
The University congratulates Dr Wiseman on this well-deserved recognition. His research holds immense potential to revolutionise our understanding of the universe's most violent phenomena.
The School of Physics & Astronomy (P&A) is thrilled to announce that Professor Sebastian Hoenig, Head of School, has been awarded a prestigious ERC Advanced Grant. This highly competitive fellowship, one of the largest in Europe for fundamental research, will propel groundbreaking work on the formation and mass of supermassive black holes in the early universe, a topic that could fundamentally change our understanding of cosmology.
The ERC Advanced Grant is a mark of excellence. Awarded through a rigorous international process, it empowers researchers to tackle ambitious 'blue-skies' projects with the potential to revolutionise their field. This 5-year grant provides substantial funding for:
Building a dedicated research team: Professor Hoenig will assemble a team of researchers, including Dr Calvin Sykes, who will help lead the project.
Securing cutting-edge technology: The grant will support development of powerful instruments like GRAVITY+ and 4MOST, crucial for precisely measuring black hole masses in the early universe.
Uncovering fundamental truths: This project tackles a critical unanswered question - are our current cosmological models flawed due to the existence of massive black holes formed shortly after the Big Bang, or are current mass estimates inaccurate?
Professor Sebastian Hoenig said:
"Recently discovered black holes less than 1 billion years after the Big Bang are supposedly so massive that it is difficult to imagine how they could have grown quick enough since the beginning of the universe. If true, this rattles the foundations of our cosmological and astrophysical understanding.
"Black hole masses are very uncertain due to observational and theoretical limitations, but with this funding I will introduce high- precision methods to measure black hole masses in the early universe and reveal if current methods are inaccurate - or if the history of mass assembly in the universe needs revisiting."
Filling the Gaps in Our Knowledge
While the existence of supermassive black holes is understood, their formation and early growth remain a mystery. Recent observations suggest these black holes might be much larger than current theories predict. Using groundbreaking instruments and techniques, Professor Hoenig's research aims to definitively measure these black holes, resolving this discrepancy and potentially leading to a paradigm shift in our understanding of the early universe.
This grant propels groundbreaking research and enforces the School's position at the forefront of scientific discovery, fostering a vibrant research environment and attracting talented researchers.
A year-long online mentoring and tutoring scheme for high potential A-level students from under-represented backgrounds who are aiming to pursue physics at university.
