Dr Alex Love
Reader in Particle Physics
Dr Mike Wilson
Lecturer in Physics
Dr Wafic Sabra (PPARC)
Professor David Bailin
University of Sussex
Dr Steven Thomas
QMW
Tel: +44 (0)1784 443505
Fax: +44 (0)1784 472794
E-mail:
m.wilson@rhbnc.ac.uk
Dr Love took his degrees at Glasgow Uniersity and worked at the Rutherford
Laboratory and Sussex University. He specialises in particle theory.
Dr Wilson was educated at Imperial College, London and then worked at Argonne
National Laboratory (University of Chicago), Johns Hopkins University and the
University of Reading. He specialises in fundamental atomic theory and its
application to laboratory and astrophysical plasmas.
The main area of interest is the derivation of properties of low energy
supergravity that may have a bearing on particle physics at accelerator
energies from compactifications of heterotic string theories. Heterotic string
theories begin with 10 dimensions for the right moving degrees of freedom and
26 dimensions for the left moving degrees of freedom. Various constructions of
a four-dimensional theory exist which may describe the world in which we live,
eg orbifold compactification, free fermion construction, compactification on
Calabi-Yau manifolds and tensoring of representations of the superconformal
algebra. Of these, orbifold compactification, ie compactification on a
torus with points identified by a discrete group, is perhaps the best
developed. In the low energy limit (compared to the string scale) the string
theory reduces to an effective N = 1 supergravity theory and it is possible in
principle to derive information from the string theory concerning parameters
which would otherwise be free parameters of the supergravity theory. In this
way it is possible to obtain information relevant to Yukawa couplings, Kahler
potentials and gauge coupling constants. Such information is needed if we are
to be able to calculate quark and lepton masses, to understand unification of
gauge coupling constants at 1016 GeV, and to derive the properties
of supersymmetry breaking in low energy supergravity.
The general direction of research in the medium term will continue to be the
derivation of properties of low energy supergravity from string theory.
Superstrings and Low Energy Supergravity (PPARC).
Low Energy Manifestations of String Theory (PPARC).
The Cray ymp supercomputer at RAL is used to calculate, from first principles,
atomic wavefunctions; these are then used to calculate level structures and
transition rates of different processes (such as autoionization) used for a
variety of applications in high and low temperature laboratory and
astrophysical plasmas. These range from X-ray lasers to the physics of solar
flares and stellar atmospheres at temperatures of many millions of degrees down
to ion traps which allow study of the quantum fluctuations of a just a single
ion or small cluster of ions maintained at temperatures as low as a few
thousandths of a degree absolute. Fundamental work on the ab initio
calculation of quantum mechanical phases and amplitudes of (e,2e) processes
is currently being explored.
The research is funded by the UK Research Council (PPARC), the European Union
(EU) and NATO. Current research grants are:
Atomic Structure Calculations in Astrophysics (PPARC).
Structure and Dynamics of Atoms and Ions by Inner-Shell Excitation
(EU).
Ionization and Coincidence Spectroscopies (EU).
The Solar Physics Group of the Daresbury and Rutherford Appleton Laboratory
(DRAL), University of Southampton.
Structure and Dynamics of Atoms and Ions by Inner-Shell Excitation: with
Mathematics Dept and 16 other groups in Europe.
Ionization and Coincidence Spectroscopies: with Mathematics Dept and 16 other
groups in Europe.
University of Caen, Technical University Berlin, Los Alamos, University of
Kentucky, Kansas State University.
The Royal Society has funded exchange visits with the Institute of Theoretical
Physics and Astronomy, Vilnius.
The British Council has funded research visits with the Technical University,
Poznan.
NATO has funded exchange visits with Kansas State and Illinois State
Universities.
String unification and extra matter multiplets below the string
scale
D Bailin and A Love
Phys Letts B280 26-30
(1992)
Kahler potentials for twisted sectors
of ZN orbifolds
D Bailin
and A Love
Phys Letts B288 263-268 (1992)
String unification, grand unification and string loop threshold
corrections
D Bailin and A Love
Phys Letts B292 315-320
(1992)
Twisted sector Yukawa couplings for the ZM x ZN orbifolds
D Bailin, A
Love and W A Sabra
Nucl Phys B403 265-290 (1993)
Duality symmetries in orbifold models
D Bailin, A Love, W A Sabra and
S Thomas
Phys Letts B320 21-28 (1994)
Isotope shifts for the 5d56s 7s and 5d56s6d
configurations of Re I
H-D Kronfeldt, D Ashkenasi, G Basar,
L Neale
and M Wilson
Zeit f Physik D: Atoms, Molecules and Clusters 25
185-189 (1993)
Interpretation of the odd parity levels of Pb I
J Dembczynski, E
Stachowska, M Wilson,
P Buch and W Ertmer
Phys Rev A49 (2)
745-754 (1994)
Helium-like argon line emission in solar flares
K J H Phillips, L K
Harra, F P Keenan,
D M Zarro and M Wilson
Astrophysical Journal
419 426-431
(1993)
Determination of complex ionization amplitudes by (e,2e)
spectroscopy
N L S Martin, D B Thompson, R P Bauman and M
Wilson
Phys Rev Letters 72 2163-2166 (1994)
Study of photon spectra emitted during N5+ - Li
collisions
G Rieger, P Boduch, M Chantepie,
G Cremer, E Jacquet,
D Lecler and
M Wilson
Physica Scripta 50 493-500 (1994)
Photoelectron spectra in cadmium: comparison with theory and (e,2e)
spectra
N L S Martin, D B Thompson, R P Bauman and M Wilson, J
Jiménez-Mier,
C D Caldwell and M O Krause
J Phys B: At Mol Opt
Phys 27 3945-3951 (1994)
Investigation of complex ionization amplitudes in cadmium by (e,2e)
spectroscopy
N L S Martin, D B Thompson, P R Bauman and M
Wilson
Phys Rev A50(5) 3878-3885 (1994)