Warwick is one of the top 10 research environments in the UK for Physics, as assessed by the 2014 UK research assessment exercise (REF). Research papers submitted by our academics were considered to be of extremely high quality, with 96% judged to be at least "internationally excellent" and a quarter "world leading".

The physics department offers three year bachelor (BSc) and four year masters (MPhys) degrees in physics and mathematics and physics and three year BSc courses in Physics and Business studies. The department also offers PhD project studentships. Prospective students are invited to contact us.

There are five themes to the research activity of the Physics department: condensed matter physics; theoretical physics; astronomy and astrophysics; fusion, space and astrophysics; and elementary particle physics.

The Elementary Particle Physics (EPP) group carries out research into the fundamental particles of matter and the forces by which they interact. The EPP group is involved in the ATLAS and LHCb experiments on the Large Hadron Collider (at the CERN laboratory near Geneva) and with the T2K experiment in Japan. The group is also actively pursuing research and development for future neutrino experiments.

The ATLAS experiment is a multipurpose experiment, built to study the collisions of protons at the LHC. At Warwick we are interested in the Higgs particle (particularly with Higgs decaying to tau leptons) and in the operation of the trigger, a device which sifts through 40 million collisions per second for interesting signals.

The LHCb experiment is designed to study the properties of decays involving the 'b' or 'beauty' quark. This heavy quark has fascinating properties, such as the phenomenon of 'flavour oscillations' by which it can change into its own anti-quark. Studying decays of particles containing b-quarks enables us to look for differences in the behaviour of matter and anti-matter via the related phenomenon of CP violation. Further studies could allow us to detect the presence of new forces beyond the Standard Model of particle physics.

The T2K experiment comprises a beam of muon neutrinos directed 295km from the J-PARC accelerator in Tokai to the Super Kamiokande detector at Kamioka. The aim of the experiment is to study the rare oscillation of muon neutrinos in the beam into electron neutrinos.

Our detector research and development targets innovative technology for neutrino experiments. This covers various diverse topics, from recent efforts into accelerator-based neutrino physics and neutrino astrophysics applications to specific neutrino mass searches using single and double beta decay. The group is also involved in preliminary research and development for a possible future neutrino factory which would produce an intense neutrino beam. This would allow a detailed study of CP violation, and hence the matter/antimatter asymmetry, in the neutrino sector.

The research of the EPP group is funded by the Science and Technology Facilities council, the Royal Society and the European Research Council.