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Professor Adrian Bevan

Adrian

Head of School | Professor of Physics

Email: a.j.bevan@qmul.ac.uk
Room Number: G. O. Jones Building, Room 106
Website: https://pprc.qmul.ac.uk/~bevan/abevan.html

Profile

Adrian Bevan is a member of the Particle Physics Research Centre. He is a Turing Fellow, a Fellow of the Institute of Physics and a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. His research interests focus on the search for physics beyond the Standard Model at CERN's Large Hadron Collider, where he applies modern data science techniques, including deep learning to data from CERN, and works on the construction of next generation detectors for that facility.  He is also working on development of organic radiation detectors and recently joined the DUNE collaboration to search for CP violation in neutrinos.

Adrian completed his PhD at the University of Cambridge in 2000 working on the NA48 experiment at CERN. He then moved to the University of Liverpool as a Senior Postdoctoral Research Associate to work on the BaBar experiment at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Centre (now SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory) operated by Stanford in California. In 2003 he was awarded a Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council personal Fellowship to continue working on BaBar, and joined QMUL in 2006 as a Lecturer. In 2010 he was appointed to the position of Reader in Particle Physics, and in 2016 he became a Fellow of the Institute of Physics and was appointed as a Professor in 2020.

CP violation is the study of matter-antimatter asymmetry.  Adrian studied this phenomenon for much of his career, searching for and measuring different CP violation effects in K, B and D mesons using data from NA47 and BaBar, working on designing new experiments to continue that study, and also writing a number of phenomenology papers. His phenomenology work includes the study of the discrete symmetries C, P, T, CP and CPT.  

From 2008 through 2013 Adrian led the physics programme of a proposed Super Flavour Factory, referred to as the SuperB experiment. His group also worked on silicon detector development related to the design and construction of a vertex detector for SuperB. In 2008 he started work on the ATLAS tracker upgrade programme at CERN, and has led the QMUL group effort in this area since 2010.  We are proud contributors to the ATLAS Inner Tracker upgrade project.   In 2012 he joined the ATLAS experiment at CERN to study rare decays and properties of the Higgs boson.  

Adrian has worked on the development of CMOS based pixel technology for possible use in future experiments such as SuperB and the upgrade of the ATLAS tracker, silicon trackers for the ATLAS experiment for the High Luminosity LHC and CERN, as well as developing new technology for radiation detection. This generic work includes ultra thin (low mass) tracking detectors and Helium-3 alternative thermal neutron detectors.  This work includes the development of organic semiconductor radiation detectors.

 

Teaching

Adrian teaches the following courses

In the past he have also taught undergraduate courses entitled

  • Introduction to C++ Programming [Deputy Module Organiser]
  • Mathematical Techniques 1 [Module Organiser]
  • Mathematical Techniques 2 [Deputy Module Organiser]
  • Mechanics and Materials [Deputy Module Organiser]
  • Nuclear Physics and Astrophysics  [Deputy Module Organiser]
  • Practical Machine Learning (SUM401N, Undergraduate)
  • Quantum Mechanics B [Module Organiser/Deputy Module Organiser]
  • Scientific Measurements [Module Organiser/Deputy Module Organiser]
  • Statistical Data Analysis (SPA6328, Undergraduate)

Administrative positions:

  • Industry liaison [2018-date]
  • Subject Exam Board Chair in the School of Physics and Astronomy [2016-2018]
  • Head of Department of Physics and Astronomy [2021-date]
  • Deputy Head of the School of Physical and Chemical Sciences [2022-date]

Over the years I have given graduate lectures on B Physics (Dubna, 2008), CP violation (London), Flavor Physics at e+e- machines (Valencia, 2013), Multivariate Analysis (SLAC, 2009, 2011), UNIX and ROOT (London and Liverpool), and tutorials on the use of fitting and multivariate analysis tools (Durham, 2007).  More recently I have focused on dedicated Machine Learning graduate lectures for GRADnet, UK Particle Physics and ATLAS UK communities.  Please see my teaching web page for a comprehensive list of these courses.

Postgraduate Students

 

Research

Research Interests:

See Adrian Bevan’s research profile pages including details of research interests, publications, and live grants.

Supervision

This is not an exhaustive list and I am happy to discuss other project possibilities.

Project Title
Search for Magnetic Monopoles
Applications of Machine Learning to Higgs Physics
Detector development
ATLAS Inner Tracker (ITK) Upgrade

 

Adrian has supervised a number of PhD students while at QMUL. These are listed below (past students have completion dates indicated)

  • Aled Horner
  • Choudhry Zahaab Amjad
  • Marvin Taylor
  • Fani Eirini Taifakou
  • Natasha Hehir
  • Tom Charman (2nd supervisor)
  • Muhammad Ali
  • Lewis Milward (2nd supervisor)
  • Rodrigo Gamboa-Goni (PhD 2021)
  • Xiaoqi Lui (PhD 2019, 2nd supervisor)
  • David Lewis (2nd supervisor)
  • Tom Stevenson (PhD 2018)
  • Tamsin Nooney (PhD 2016)
  • Gianluca Inguglia (PhD 2014)
  • Michael Sigamani (PhD 2009, 2nd supervisor)
  • Chukwudi Clarke (PhD 2009, 2nd supervisor)

In addition to this he has supervised the work of students at a number of other institutes including Bristol, Imperial College, Liverpool and Wisconsin through his research affiliations to various experiments.

Performance

Presentations

Adrian has given over 100 talks and seminars in a number of countries round the world, including Australia, China, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Japan, Poland, South Korea, Sweeden, Switzerland, Taiwan, UK, and US.  These include seminars at the following major particle physics laboratories: DESY, DESY Zeuthen, IHEP, KEK, and at SLAC.  Adrian also gives general talks on particle physics to public audiences. Some recent highlights are listed below

A comprehensive list of Adrian's talks can be found at http://pprc.qmul.ac.uk/~bevan/talks.html.  If you would like Adrian to give a talk on particle physics suitable for a general audience or at a particular conference, please drop him an e-mail to ask about availability.

 

Adrian has organised a number of workshops and conferences over the years, including the "50 years of CP violation" conference in 2014.  He also started the conference series on the Interplay between Particle and Astroparticle physics in 2014.

 

Grants

 

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