News and Events
Astronomers from Queen’s University Belfast have gathered the most direct evidence yet of a supermassive black hole shredding a star that wandered too close. The Queen’s astronomers are part of the Pan-STARRS international team, whose discovery has been published in the journal Nature today (Wed, 2 May).
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Dr Laura Mazzola was awarded a prestigious two-year Marie-Curie Intra-European fellowship from the European Union, starting from April 2011, to work in collaboration with Dr Mauro Paternostro on "quantum thermodynamics".
Recently the quantum information community has started investigating fundamental questions on the ultimate size and efficiency of thermal engines at the level of few atoms. Do quantum correlations, for example entanglement, play a fundamental role in the thermodynamics of quantum mesoscopic systems? Laura will tackle these and other exciting questions during her fellowship at QUB.
Laura joined QUB in 2011. She was awarded her PhD from the University of Turku in 2010, after working on open quantum systems with Dr Sabrina Maniscalco and Dr Jyrki Piilo.
For further information visit the QTeQ website.
Delegates at the MultiHy meeting which passed off well
Press Release issued on 16 April 2012
A consortium of eleven industrial and academic partners has been established to develop modern computer simulation methods. The aim is to render new high strength steels and nickel alloys resistant to failure due to hydrogen damage. These alloys are intended for application in light weight motor car bodies, satellite-carrying rockets and modern powerplant equipment, especially off shore wind turbines. The remit of the consortium, funded with 5.3m euro through the EU’s 7th Framework Programme and partner contributions, is to address three industry led case studies.
One is the optimisation of the pulse-plating process used in the fabrication of the nickel combustion chambers of the Ariane 5 satellite launcher; another is preventing hydrogen embrittlement in advanced high strength steels designed for future automobile chassis components and the third is minimising rolling contact fatigue in next-generation wind turbine bearings.
The automotive industry is still missing current EU targets in carbon dioxide emissions by up to 35 gram per kilometre. While modern steels have been designed that can meet this requirement through reduction inweight, steel producers are aware of the increased risks of hydrogen embrittlement which can accompany steels with higher tensile strengths. A similar problem affects the bearings of offshore wind turbines and again there is an urgent need to come to terms with the issue and present some solutions to industry.
Until now, scientists undertaking the computer modelling of the underlying phenomena have concentrated on a particular "length-scale", somewhere between atomistic and component-level finite element simulations. "We now want to carry through computer simulations at all length scales from atoms to entire components," says the project coordinator Dr Nicholas Winzer of the Fraunhofer Institute for Mechanics of Materials IWM. The influence of microstructure of alloys on their design lifetime can thereby be investigated and new materials developed. The automobile, aerospace and energy industries will directly benefit and in particular in the realm of renewable energy.
During heat treatment, mechanical working, sheet drawing and coating processes, fine cracks appear which render the metal unstable under load. The guilty party here is atomic hydrogen that moves rapidly within the metal crystal lattice collecting at dislocations and grain boundaries where it wreaks its havoc, resulting in so called "hydrogen embrittlement". As cracks grow under load to a critical size, so the component fails.
Using multiscale modelling, experts can take into account all the facets of the microstructure in a variety of materials. "With our modelling we can predict precisely how susceptible an alloy or a component is to hydrogen embrittlement under realistic conditions," says Dr Matous Mrovec the coordinator of the atomistic simulations. Atomic information such as diffusion barriers, activation energies and trapping sites can now be used directly to predict component lifetimes under particular service conditions. In association with the computer modelling, experimental studies to characterise the engineering materials will be made by the industrial partners.
At Queen's University, the Atomistic Simulation Centre (ASC) in the School of Mathematics and Physics is leading the effort to bridge the length scales between the atomistic and the continuum modelling. "With the advent of supercomputers, theoretical physics is now able to bring practical solutions directly to Industry," says Professor Anthony Paxton of the ASC.
Recently Queen's University invested 200,000 pounds in the build of a new computer room which houses the ASC's half a million pound investment in supercomputer systems. The new facility has the benefit of state of the art negative pressure water cooling. Our supercomputers are being heavily used in our new researches into the simulation of dynamical processes taking place when hydrogen is introduced into steel.
Now the School of Mathematics and Physics is hosting the first annual meeting of the Consortium on 16-18 April and we are pleased to welcome our European Partners to Belfast.
BMW group
Fraunhofer IWM
ASTRIUM, an EADS company
SKF Group
voestalpine Stahl GmbH
Universidad de Salamanca
ThyssenKrupp Steel Europe
The National Physical Laboratory
Swansea University
Norwegian University of Science and Technology
Receiving her Queen’s Centenary Gold Medal from William Crawley and Professor Ellen Douglas-Cowie is first year mathematics student Michelle McGlone. Michelle was the best performing student in the Leaving Certificate and was also awarded a STEM Scholarship
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A Queen’s University scientist has been chosen to lead an international €2.3million hunt to discover how the first chemical elements were created in the Universe.
Professor Stephen Smartt, Director of the Astrophysics Research Centre in the School of Maths and Physics will begin a five year research project in April to examine how chemical elements were created in the Universe and try to find the first ever supernovae, or exploding stars, in the Universe.
The grant, awarded by the European Research Council, is regarded as the most prestigious research grant in Europe for funding Science and Social Sciences.
A PhD student in the Astrophysics Research Centre in the School of Mathematics and Physics has been awarded a grant for her work which could improve the chances of detecting Earth-like planets in the future.
PhD student Heather Cegla has been awarded a prestigious Grant-in-Aid of Research from Sigma-Xi
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The final scores were extremely close, with Belfast Royal Academy winning first place just ahead of Methodist College and Royal Belfast Academical Institution. The competition was sponsored by Citigroup and First Derivatives, who employ many mathematics graduates from Queen's each year. The winners received their prizes from Anna Lo, MLA for South Belfast.
Emeritus Professor Phil Burke, has been recently awarded the prestigious Will Allis prize from the American Physical Society "for pioneering and sustained theoretical development of R-Matrix computational methods for electron-atom and electron-molecule collisions important in modeling ionized gases and plasmas".
Prof Burke obtained his PhD in theoretical nuclear physics at University College London in 1956 and worked at the Lawrence Radiation Laboratory Berkeley and at the Atomic Energy Research Establishment Harwell before being appointed Professor of Mathematical Physics at Queen's University of Belfast in 1967, where he led research in theoretical atomic, molecular and optical physics.
As well as being a Fellow of the Royal Society and a Member of the Royal Irish Academy, he is a Fellow of the Institute of Physics, the American Physical Society, the Royal Astronomical Society and the European Physical Society.
See this link for more information.
Dr André Xuereb was awarded a prestigious three-year fellowship from the Royal commission for the Exhibition of 1851, starting from November 2011, to work in collaboration with Dr Mauro Paternostro on "nonlinear optomechanics". The young field of optomechanics studies the interactions between light and the motion of small objects such as nano and microfabricated mechanical structures. This work is intended to find new avenues to enforce and expose the quantum-mechanical nature of these systems and build up quantum-empowered sensors for position and motion that will beat the performance of the best of their classical counterparts.
André joined QUB after working as a post-doctoral researcher at Leibniz University in Hannover. He was awarded his PhD from the University of Southampton in 2011, after working with Dr Tim Freegarde.
See this link for more information.
From 2012 the School will be offering new BSc Degrees in Mathematics with Finance, and Physics with Financial Mathematics.
BSc/ MSci and PhD graduates in Mathematics and Physics are particularly valued for their modelling and problem-solving abilities, leadership qualities and technical skills (particularly software development). Globally, the big investment banks all have their quota of physicists and mathematicians, or 'rocket scientists' as they are affectionately known, and the City alone is recruiting at least 100 young PhDs every year. Increasingly, other institutions - high-street banks, financial regulatory bodies, consultancy firms, building societies and insurance companies - are also employing people with a rigorous training in mathematics and physics.
The financial services industry in Northern Ireland employs over 23,000 people. Large global employers such as Citi, NYSE Technologies, Allstate Corporation, Liberty Mutual, Fidessa, PWC, Mercer and Polaris and so on, have important technology groups well established here. There are huge opportunities for Northern Ireland to compete internationally and to harness its resource of top-class mathematical, analytical and computational skills.
The new courses have been designed with input from industry and NI companies such as First Derivatives and aquaQ to ensure that graduates will be highly employable in these areas.
Of course, possessing a Physics or Mathematics degree from a Russell Group University such as Queen's is a valuable asset in its own right. So many of the individual courses taken by students at Queen's will involve studying general mathematics and physics, from vector fields, complex analysis and statistics to atomic and nuclear physics. This will ensure the maximum flexibility for our graduates in the job market.
Professor Ian Williams, Director of Education said "This is a fantastic new opportunity that we are pleased to offer students. The degrees have been created to be intellectually stimulating for students with an eye on the future, both scientifically and financially".
Dr Justyn R Maund has been awarded a Royal Society Research Fellowship for research in the Astrophysics Research Centre.
The prestigious fellowship provides five years of funding for Maund's project to examine how some stars end their lives in explosions called Supernovae. By studying the stars that will explode as Supernovae and the geometries of these explosions, his project aims to determine the nature of the underlying explosion mechanism of these events and identify the extreme physics involved. This project will use some of the most advanced astronomical facilities, including the European Southern Observatory Very Large Telescope and the Hubble Space Telescope.
Prior to coming to QUB, Dr Maund was a post-doctoral scholar at the Dark Cosmology Centre in Copenhagen, University of California Santa Cruz and the University of Texas Austin.
Queen’s astrophysicists have been among the first to congratulate two of their global partners on the award of this year’s Nobel Prize for Physics. Professor Brian Schmidt of the Australian National University and Professor Adam Reiss of Johns Hopkins University have been honoured for their discovery of the accelerating expansion of the universe.
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Front row, Matthew Mulhern, 4th year physics student, Tony McManus, Global Head of Enterprise Software, NYSE Technologies, David Kane, 2nd year physics student, and Donald Henderson, Chief Technology Officer, NYSE Technologies, Back row: Tom Field, Physics Lecturer, QUB, Glenn McClements, Research and Development Manager, NYSE Technologies and Ian Williams, Director of Education, Maths and Physics: Inset, Rebecca Allen, 3rd year Physics student
Queen's University Belfast is proud to announce that three of its physics students have been rewarded for their programming skills in the computer language C by NYSE Technologies, who have a centre of excellence in Belfast. NYSE Technologies is a division of NYSE Euronext, a leading global operator of financial markets and provider of innovative trading technologies.
Two students, Rebecca Allen and David Kane, have been awarded scholarships and Matthew Mulhern was awarded a prize for his third year C physics project, which involved quantum mechanical calculations with the Shooting Method. These awards include opportunities for the students to work in the Research and Development Team at NYSE Technologies, led by Glenn McClements.
"Two common themes to programming in physics and financial trading software are speed and the need to handle large volumes of information efficiently" noted Tom Field, who taught these students C programming in Physics at Queen's. "We are delighted with the opportunity to work with NYSE Technologies".
The School of Mathematics and Physics has obtained a Bronze Department Athena SWAN award, one of ten UK science, engineering and technology departments to be recognised in the 2011 Athena SWAN Charter awards. The School's submission was coordinated by Dr Adele Mrshall, who chaired the self-assessment team.
This summer sees the first in a new series of lectures at Queen's University where the public can learn the truth behind tales of monstrous black holes and dangerous asteroids, from international scientists who are leading the work.
The Michael West Public Lectures in Astronomy will be held each year to explain some of the latest and most exciting discoveries in the world of astronomy. They are named after Dr Michael West, a graduate of Queen's who is supporting scientific research and public outreach in the University’s Astrophysics Research Centre.
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Researchers from Queen’s and Vanderbilt University in Nashville are aiming for the stars with a number of new research collaborations.
Visits by Professors Stephen Smartt and Don Pollacco from Queen’s Astrophysics Research Centre and Professor Keivan Stassun from Vanderbilt to their partner institutions have initiated several research projects and led to the first joint science papers.
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A Queen's PhD student with a 'quest for understanding and passion for physics' has won a national award for his research.
Dermot Green from the Centre for Theoretical Atomic, Molecular and Optical Physics in the School of Mathematics and Physics was awarded the Rosse Medal by the Institute of Physics (IoP) in Ireland.
The medal, which is awarded to the winner of the postgraduate student poster competion, commemorates the 34d Earl of Rosse, Sir William Parsons, Irish astronomer and builder of 'Leviathan', the largest 19th century reflecting telescope, in Birr, Co Offaly.
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Scientists at Queen’s University are playing a key role in a new, national centre of excellence to train the next generation of researchers in technology which could improve cancer therapy and strengthen homeland security.?
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Above left and right: The TARANIS laser is a £2M facility capable of delivering two intense laser pulses to either of two separate experimental areas.
The Centre for Plasma Physics has won two grants from EPSRC in February 2011, worth a total of £2.1M.
The first of these is a platform grant led by Prof Ciaran Lewis with Profs Marco Borghesi, Dave Riley, Matt Zepf and Drs Brendan Dromey and Michael Geissler as co-investigators. The grant of £1.4M will underpin high intensity laser-plasma research on the TARANIS laser for 4 years.
The second grant, led by Prof Riley with the same group of colleagues as co-investigators is for £0.7M and is a responsive mode grant to support work on XUV interaction with warm dense matter.
20 students from the Physics and Mathematics Society (PAMSOC) enjoyed 2 nights at the Aras Ghleann Cholm Cille Hostel in Donegal. There they enjoyed fantastic views of Saturn, double stars and star clusters. Daytime was spent enjoying the warmth of our nearest star with a mixture of frisbee, rounders, archery and swimming.
Scientists at Queen's have won almost £2 million in grants for a range of world-leading projects to unlock the secrets of the Universe.
The astronomers - who are all based in the University's Astrophysics Research Centre (ARC) - have been awarded £1.8 million from the Science and Technolog Facilities Council (STFC).
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Prof Don Pollacco accepting the award
The Royal Astronomical Society has awarded Prof Don Pollacco (Astrophysics Research Centre) and the SuperWASP team the 2010 Group Achievement Award for Astronomy. The team has so far announced the discovery of 26 planets orbiting other stars, and continues to search for more. The SuperWASP team is a collaboration between Queen's and 7 other academic institutes to search for these distant worlds, and operate clusters of cameras in the Canary Islands and South Africa. The award was accepted by Don Pollacco on behalf of the team at the 2010 National Astronomy Meeting in Glasgow.
Queen's scientists focus on revealing hidden mysteries of the universe
Secrets of the Universe are to be revealed as a new telescope equipped with the world’s most powerful digital camera begins its observations of the night sky.
The Pan-STARRS sky survey telescope – known as PS1 – will enable scientists to better understand the mysteries of dark matter and dark energy, the material that is thought to account for much of the mass of the universe but has never been proven to exist. Astronomers from Queen's University Belfast and the Universities of Durham and Edinburgh, together with researchers from around the world, are using the telescope to scan the skies from dusk to dawn each night.More ...
EPSRC Fellowship awarded at the Life-Science Interface
Dr Chris Calvert has been awarded an EPSRC Postdoctoral Research Fellowship for Research at the Physics/Life-Science interface.
In a three year research project entitled 'Next generation techniques for analysis of biomolecular systems', Chris will be investigating the application of femtosecond laser technology to studies of biomolecular structure and dynamics.
The research will be carried out using ion-storage devices and ultrafast light sources in the Centre for Plasma Physics (QUB) and at laboratories in Dublin City University and Aarhus University.
FP7 Grant in Astrochemical Surface Science Awarded
FP7 Award for QUB Scientists
Prof Tom Millar (Astrophysics Research Centre), Dr Tom Field and Professor Bob McCullough (Centre for Plasma Physics) were recently awarded over 400k euros from the EU as part of an international collaboration to create an International Training Network under the FP7 programme. The ITN, called LASSIE (Laboratory Astrochemical Surface Science in Europe), has been awarded some 6.1m euros to address issues of relevance to the chemical evolution of the Universe.
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Meredith Grieve's Presentation
Queen's Student wins Hamilton Prize
Queen's undergraduate, Meredith Grieve, has won the 2009 Hamilton Prize as the best Mathematics student in her penultimate year at Queen's.
The Hamilton Prizes are awarded each year by the Royal Irish Academy to recognise exceptional achievement in the field of Mathematics. The award is made each year on 16th October, the day on which Hamilton in 1843 discovered the correct formula to turn the quaternions into a division algebra.
Meredith received her certificate and the prize of 1000 euro at the annual Hamilton Lecture in Dublin.
