This yearâs Engineering and Technology Careers Fair was a resounding success with more than 1,000 students attending to find out more about career options from 80 of the UKâs leading companies.
The Fair attracted major employers across the technology industries, transport, energy, media, finance, gaming, retail, security and communications.
The annual Careers Fair is the centrepiece of the careers and employability activity in Physical and Applied Sciences, and has been running since 2008. The first event attracted 23 companies and it has grown year on year â an excellent indication of the continuing strong demand for Southampton graduates.
Many companies attend every year, but new companies attending the Fair for the first time this year included industry leaders such as Amazon, Gazprom, Hawk-Eye, Huddle, Lockheed Martin, Meggitt, NVIDIA, and notonthehighstreet.com.
âThe Fair is a great endorsement of the high regard that the UKâs leading technology companies have for Southampton students,â? said Careers Fair Director Joyce Lewis. âWe had 80 companies attending this year â a significant increase from last year, and it was fantastic to hear the buzz in both venues and to see the great interactions taking place between the company representatives â many of whom were Southampton alumni â and students across all years and many subject areas.
âWeâve had excellent feedback from the companies, who are already looking forward to returning for next yearâs event.â?
Other careers and employability activities organised by FPAS throughout the year include the Careers Hub website ,conferences, employer presentations and mentoring programmes, designed to ensure students are aware of all the opportunities open to them and are best prepared to gain the position they want.
For further information about the ECS Careers Hub and 2014 Fair (11 February 2014), contact Joyce Lewis.
A teddy bear called Derek took one giant step for bearkind on Sunday 3 March, when he was blasted into space by members of the University of Southamptonâs Physics Society (Physoc) and pupils from Toynbee School in Eastleigh, Hampshire.
Derek was launched 34 kilometers into space so he could measure data in the stratosphere in a specially-designed space suit, which had to withstand extreme temperatures and safely house his data sensors for his day above the Earth. Also attached to Derek, were two stills cameras and a video camera to record some fantastic pictures and video of the Earth.
The project was the idea of year seven to nine science pupils at Toynbee School as part of a physics experiment. They teamed up with the Institute of Physics and University of Southampton to help get Derek airborne. He was launched from near Ocknell Caravan park in Stoney Cross in the New Forest.
Cait Percy, Physoc Outreach Officer, said: âWe've been running a series of after school clubs to teach the kids about space and some of the physics behind the launch, so this was the culmination of all their efforts. It has helped to generate excitement and interest in physics and shows that you can do some really cool stuff through science.â?
For more information on Derek and Physics and Astronomy at the University of Southampton, follow Twitter @AstroPhysSoton on Twitter.
BBC Two presenter and University of Southampton researcher Dr Helen Czerski will be one of the star attractions at this yearâs Big Bang Solent Fair.
Helen, who is a Research Fellow at the Institute of Sound and Vibration Research and presented BBC Twoâs Operation Iceberg, will be giving visitors to the Fair a tour around the amazing ways that bubbles matter in oceanography, medicine and the natural world.
Her show Bubbles is just one of the many exciting demonstrations and activities being showcased at the Universityâs Highfield Campus on March 21 as part of the Big Bang Solent Fair to celebrate Science Week.
It is the first time the University has hosted the Fair, which is an annual event led by Solent EBP to highlight the best amongst regional Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) and raise the importance of these areas.
It aims to inspire and excite young people and help them make important choices to remain focused on STEM-related educational pathways and careers.
More than 600 young people from schools and colleges in Hampshire, Dorset and Wiltshire are expected to attend and take part in the range of activities.
The Universityâs Physics show Accelerate will see students learning how to drive a particle accelerator, from the thousands of small machines that are used in medicine and industry, to the enormous 27km ring of the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland.
They will also be able to meet employers from organisations including Astrium, IBM, Thales and BAE Systems.
Professor Malcolm Coe, Outreach and Public Engagement Team Leader in Physics and Astronomy at the University of Southampton, said: âAt Southampton we are committed to encouraging young people to gain an interest in and enthusiasm for the STEM subjects. We hope that by hosting this yearâs Big Bang Solent Fair we will be helping inspire the next generation of scientists and researchers.
Robin Smith, Solent EBPâs Events Manager added: âThis Big Bang Fair is an important part of the educational year. It is a perfect opportunity to help encourage more students into science and engineering careers.
âTeacher feedback from last yearâs event was very positive. One visiting teacher commented: âThe students enjoyed the event; it was excellent to have such a wide range of exhibitors who were extremely interesting.â.â?
The 2013 Big Bang Fair is sponsored by Engineering UK, Skills UK who provided European Social Funding, and the South East Physics Network (SEPnet).
A Physics and Astronomy academic has received a major research grant to help him explore the limitations of quantum theory.
Dr Hendrik Ulbricht, a Reader in Physics and Astronomy, has been awarded nearly £500,000 by the John Templeton Foundation in the US.
Sir John Templeton, the late American millionaire, investor and philanthropist, created the Foundation to encourage scientists and students across the globe to explore fundamental, big questions in astronomy and cosmology that engage groundbreaking ideas on the nature of the Universe and the foundations of physics.
Hendrik and his team will be using the grant to fund experiments to investigate whether there is a limit to quantum mechanics and also to fund two new PhD students for three years.
âQuantum theory is the most fundamental and most precise description of our understanding of all the processes happening in the Universe, with the exception of gravity. Quantum theory is based on a clear mathematical apparatus and has enormous significance for the natural sciences. It also has phenomenal predictive success and plays a critical role for almost all modern technology. Therefore, to discover universal limits of this theory would have a significant impact,â? said Hendrik.
Previously Hendrik and his team have been exploring the theoretical possibility of conducting experiments to discover whether there is a limit to quantum theory or not. This grant will allow them to set up and conduct that experiment using matter wave interferometry of nanoparticles between 10 nanometres and 100 nanometres in diameter. They will be able to work faster, to concentrate on the physics, and to compete with strong groups around the world.
They will generate a very fragile state of matter called a quantum superposition state that describes the possibility for a single particle to be in two or more states at a time. The experiment will be based on Physicist Erwin Schrödingerâs Cat paradox where the cat is in a superposition state of both half alive and half dead. The team will try to generate a Schro Ìdinger Cat using free-flying nanoparticles at the mesoscopic scale.
âIf quantum theory is unlimited we should be able to generate a quantum superposition state for very massive particles such as nanoparticles. However, if quantum theory is not valid we will be unable to generate this superposition. We simply want to test which of the two alternatives is correct and therefore if quantum theory has any limitations,â? said Hendrik.
âUltimately we would like to try and extend this experiment to really macroscopic scales â to things that can be seen with the naked eye,â? he added.
The team will be collaborating with theoreticians in Mumbai, in India, and Trieste, in Italy.
âOur project has the potential to represent a big step forward on the road to the discovery of possible limitations of quantum theory and a even more fundamental underlying new theory, which would be a breakthrough for the foundations of physics. With this Templeton Foundation grant and hopefully more funding in the future, the University of Southampton can be one of the first places in the world to observe mesoscopic or even macroscopic superposition,â? said Hendrik.
Physicists from the University of Southampton have demonstrated very strong, collective multiple scattering and mesoscopic (between macroscopic objects and the microscopic, atomic world) light transport in three-dimensional nanowire mats, which is of considerable importance for applications in next-generation light-harvesting and optoelectronics devices.
For many years, researchers have been excited by the possibility to stop light in strongly scattering media by self-interference of many light paths, in an effect known as Anderson localisation. The concept of wave localisation was first proposed by physicist Philip Anderson in 1958, who received a Nobel Prize for his idea in 1977.
While initially most localisation research was done on electrons, it was soon realised that the predicted effects are universal for all types of waves, including acoustic and electromagnetic (light) waves. The direct observation of these kinds of interference effects for light in the optical regime requires very strong scattering materials, and has so far been elusive.
Now, researchers at the University of Southampton have demonstrated very pronounced interference correlations in the way that light is transmitted through a strongly scattering layer. The layers were fabricated at the University of Eindhoven in the Netherlands, using mats of semiconductor nanowires, which are one of the strongest three-dimensional scattering materials for light. Such nanowire mats are of considerable technological interest for applications in solar cells and next-generation LED lighting, as has been investigated for many years by the Eindhoven group in close collaboration with Philips Research laboratories.
In the study, which is published in Nature Photonics, the Southampton researchers showed that, because of the interferences, light transmission takes place through a minimum of around three open transmission modes, which is a record low value for light in a three-dimensional medium.
Dr Otto Muskens, from the Quantum Light and Matter Group at the University of Southampton and co-author of the paper, says: âBy using statistical methods originally developed for microwave waveguides, we were able to demonstrate that transport of light through nanowire mats is strongly correlated and governed by mesoscopic interference contributions.
âRather than guiding of light through individual nanowires, as might have been intuitively expected, these modes represent the collective light scattering by the dense array of wires. The presence of strongly correlated transport shows that traditional light diffusion models are no longer valid when describing photon transport and emission in strongly scattering nanowire mats, which is of significant importance for the optimisation of light management in nanowire devices for harvesting and emission.â?
The present results do not yet show Anderson localisation, however the researchers believe that this landmark is within reach and might be reached by further optimisation of the nanowire mats. By tuning the geometry and arrangement of the nanowires, next-generation devices may be built that exploit disorder in new and unexpected ways.
Astronomy Research Fellow Dr Teo Munoz-Darias is part of a team whose paper about the discovery of a mysterious structure around a black hole has been published in the latest edition of the prestigious Science journal.
Teo was the third author of the paper led by his colleagues from the Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias, in Spain.
Their paper explains how the black hole was obscured by a disc of gas with a vertical structure that was continually expanding away from the black hole. It is the first time that a black hole has been seen with this inclination and the researchers describe how it resembles an immense doughnut.
âSwift J1357.2-0933 is a binary system located more than 5,000 light years away from the Earth, harbouring a ânormalâ star and a stellar-mass black hole that feeds off its companion star. Our investigation followed the outburst evolution of the system, an event that occurs only once in decades or centuries,â? said Teo.
âWe observed unexpected partial eclipses in the system that lasted and were repeated every few minutes. They led us to two conclusions â we had to be viewing the black hole edge on and part of the matter being drawn from the companion star formed a vertical structure that is causing the eclipses. We believe this newly discovered structure can be present in other black hole systems as well,â? he added.
Black holes are formed following the death of very massive stars and it is difficult to see them as they donât emit any light. If they are alone it is almost impossible to find them and therefore they are only discovered when they are interacting with very nearby stars. Since the first one was detected in 1964, only 18 other black holes have been found in our galaxy - Swift J1357.2-0933 is the latest one in the list.
The full paper is published in Science, the worldâs leading journal of original scientific research, global news and commentary and can be read online
Physics and Astronomy challenged students to create an exciting overview of their three research groups â Astronomy, Nanotechnology and Photonics, and Particle Physics â that would interest and inspire younger pupils.
The Outreach and Public Engagement Team ran the Science and Art competition for AS and A-Level students. The goal was to develop three introductory web pages to explain the cutting-edge research of the three groups at a level accessible to GCSE students and the general public.
The three winners of the competition were:
⢠Samuel Parker, from Barton Peveril College, Eastleigh, for his description about the Nanotechnology and Photonics research of the Quantum, Light and Matter group
⢠Katie Prescott, from Peter Symonds College, Winchester, for her description about the Astrophysics Research of the Astronomy Group
⢠Thomas Waite, from Turton Sixth Form College, Bolton, for his description about Particle Physics research
They were all awarded £100 for their efforts and Katie also won £100 for creating an amazing piece of artwork depicting a black hole dramatically interacting in a binary system with a nearby star.
Dr Sadie Jones, Outreach Leader in Astronomy, said: âWe wanted to encourage students to create some exciting copy about our cutting-edge research that would help GCSE pupils and the general public understand what we actually do here in Physics and Astronomy. We were very pleased with the winnersâ results and these are now live on our web pages and we hope they will inspire many more young people to develop an interest in our research.â?
An international team of astronomers have reported the first scientific results from the Karoo Array Telescope (KAT-7) in South Africa, the pathfinder radio telescope for the $3 billion global Square Kilometre Array (SKA) project. The results appear in the latest issue of the prestigious international astronomical journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (MNRAS).
Using the seven-dish KAT-7 telescope and the 26 m radio telescope at the Hartebeesthoek Radio Astronomy Observatory (HartRAO), astronomers have observed a neutron star system known as Circinus X-1 as it fires energetic matter from its core into the surrounding system in extensive, compact `jets' that flare brightly, details of which are visible only in radio waves.
Circinus X-1 is an X-ray binary (or two-star system) where one of the companion stars is a high-density, compact neutron star (a neutron star is an extremely dense and compact remnant of an exploded star and only 20km in diameter.) The two stars orbit each other every 16.5 days in an elliptical orbit. When the two stars are at their closest the gravity of the dense neutron star pulls material from the companion star. A powerful jet of material then blasts out from the system.
During the time astronomers, including a team from the University of Southampton, observed Circinus X-1 (13 December 2011 to 16 January 2012) the system flared twice at levels among the highest observed in recent years. KAT-7 was able to catch both of these flares and follow them as they progressed. This is the first time that the system has been observed in such detail during the full flare cycle.
âOne way of explaining what is happening is that the compact neutron star gobbles up parts of its companion star and then fires much of this matter back out again,â? explains Dr Richard Armstrong, an SKA SA Fellow at the University of Cape Town and lead author of the paper. âThe dramatic radio flares happen when the matter Circinus X-1 has violently ejected slows down as it smashes into the surrounding medium.â?
Professor Rob Fender, Head of the Astronomy Research Group at the University of Southampton, says: âCircinus X-1 continues to reveal new aspects of its behaviour, and is arguably the best laboratory for relativistic jet astrophysics in the southern hemisphere. It is furthermore an excellent control to the large population of jets associated with accreting black holes.â?
Dr Armstrong adds: âThese types of observations are crucial for understanding the processes of both accretion of matter onto extremely dense systems, such as neutron stars and black holes of both about the sunâs mass, and also the so-called supermassive variety we now know to be at the centre of most galaxies.â?
KAT-7 is the world's first radio telescope array consisting of composite antenna structures. It is the test array for MeerKAT, a much larger radio array, which is itself in turn a precursor for the dish-based component of the SKA.
The MNRAS study was carried out as part of the development for the ThunderKAT project on MeerKAT, which will find many more of these types of systems in the galaxy and search for new types of radio systems that change rapidly with time.
Professor Fender, who is co-leader of the MeerKAT project, adds: âThis project will test the extremes of physics, density, temperature, pressure, velocity, gravitational and magnetic fields, and are beyond anything achievable in any laboratory on Earth. It provides a unique glimpse of the laws of physics operating in extraordinary regimes. Nearly all such events are associated with transient radio emission. By studying radio bursts from these phenomena, we can pinpoint the sources of explosive events, probe relativistic accretion and understand the budget of kinetic feedback by such events in the ambient medium.â?
A Southampton astronomer is among a team of international researchers that has finally solved a decade-old puzzle about the way exotic objects such as black holes swallow the material they rip off the surface of nearby binary companions.
Christian Knigge, Professor in Physics and Astronomy at the University of Southampton, worked with colleagues from around the world to observe an extremely precise measurement of the distance to a star system containing such an exotic object, in this case a white dwarf.
Their findings have been published today in the prestigious journal Science, and show how the team, led by Dr James Miller-Jones, from the Curtin University node of the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR), has measured the distance to star system SS Cygni to be 372 light years. This is much closer than a previous measurement made by the Hubble Space Telescope. The new distance finally explains why this system swallows the material it steals from its companion in big gulps rather than in a steady slurp.
The measurement was made possible by amateur astronomers from the American Association of Variable Star Observers (AAVSO) who alerted the researchers to changes in the compact star system.
The academics used two of the worldâs most accurate radio telescopes â the Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA) in the United States and the European Very Long Baseline Interferometry Network (EVN) in Europe and South Africa - to measure the annual wobble of the system compared to distant background galaxies, allowing them to measure the distance to SS Cygni with unprecedented precision.
James said: âIf you hold your finger out at armâs length and move your head from side to side, you should see your finger appear to wobble against the background. If you move your finger closer to your head, youâll see it starts to wobble more. We did the exact same thing with SS Cygni - we measured how far it moved against some very distant galaxies as the Earth moved around the Sun. The wobble we were detecting is the equivalent of trying to see someone stand up in New York from as far as away as Sydney.â?
The distance to SS Cygni had previously been measured using the Hubble Space Telescope, producing a puzzling result that was much further than predicted. At this distance, the white dwarf in SS Cygni should have swallowed material continuously rather than in gulps.
âIf SS Cygni was actually as far away as Hubble measured then it was far too bright to be what we thought it was, and we would have had to rethink the physics of how systems like this worked,â? James said.
SS Cygni is a double star system containing a normal low mass star and a white dwarf star. A white dwarf is the remnant of a star like our Sun that has run out of fuel and collapsed into an object about the size of Earth. Because itâs so dense, its strong gravity strips gas off its companion star, which then swirls around the white dwarf.
Occasionally the flow of gas onto the white dwarf will increase dramatically, causing the system to appear up to 40 times brighter in visible light. Itâs only during these rare periods that the star system emits radio waves, which allow for a much more precise measure of the distance.
âSince exactly the same kinds of processes occur when more massive stars like neutron stars and black holes pull gas from orbiting companion stars, white dwarf systems like this provide ideal laboratories to help us understand what is happening,â? explained Christian.
The revised measured distance of just over 370 light years to SS Cygni has solved the puzzle of the systemâs brightness and explains why it exhibits such a dramatic outburst in visible light.
âWe can now have much more confidence in our understanding of what happens as gas falls onto these exotic objects. Not just white dwarves but neutron stars and black holes as well,â? said James.
The South East Physics network (SEPnet) and Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) have announced their plans to invest £13.1 million pounds to sustain physics undergraduate and postgraduate teaching provision, and world class research facilities, staff and doctoral training over the five years up to 2018.
HEFCE will provide £2.75 million to maintain and expand the network, to establish a dedicated regional graduate training programme for physics postgraduate students and address physics specific issues of student participation and diversity. On top of the HEFCE contribution, each SEPnet partner will support and fund programmes of Outreach, Employability and Research.
Benefits of the University of Southampton's involvement with SEPnet include:
1) Expansion of employer engagement and internship programmes, widening the range of work experiences available to enhance undergraduate (UG) and postgraduate (PG) employability and progress to research degrees;
2) An Outreach Programme to deliver and disseminate best practice in schools and public engagement and increase diversity in physics education.
3) A regional Graduate Network developing and delivering an exemplar programme of PhD transferable and leadership skills training delivered flexibly to create employment-ready physics doctoral graduates for the economic benefit of the UK;
4) Increasing employer engagement with HEIs including PhD internships, industrially-sponsored studentships and Knowledge Transfer fellowships;
5) Enhanced impact of SEPnetâs research via a clear, collaborative impact strategy;
6) Improved research environment diversity through engagement with Athena SWAN and the IOPâs Project Juno.
The Outreach programme has succeeded in effectively exploiting the growing national interest in physics through its wide range of public engagement and schools activities. There has been a substantial increase in applications and intake for physics undergraduate courses and undergraduate numbers are now 90 per cent higher in the SEPnet physics departments compared with 2007 and applications up approximately 115 per cent - well above national trends.
Sir Peter Knight, President of the Institute of Physics (IOP), expressed strong support for the government's continued investments in the sciences generally and in physics specifically. He said: âSEPnet has been an undoubted success in sustaining physics in the South East region and has strongly participated in contributing to its beneficial effects nationally. It is an exemplar of collaborative best practice in outreach, employability and research and we now look forward to collaborating in the critical areas of graduate training, public engagement and diversity.â?
The network will be led by the University of Southampton. Vice-Chancellor of the University of Southampton, Professor Don Nutbeam, said: âI am delighted that the University of Southampton, in partnership with nine other universities in the region, is able to build on the success of the SEPnet initiative to reinvigorate the university physics teaching and research and take it to a new level in the turbulent period ahead for the higher education sector. The SEPnet training programme brings novelty, quality and diversity to the regions physics postgraduates that we expect to be a model for other regions and subjects.â?
For further information on how Physics and Astronomy at the University of Southampton works with SEPnet, and how this relationship benefits our students, please visit the "'Careers and Your Future'" section on our website.