PhD Position in Accelerator Physics

About the position

Position as PhD Research Fellow in development of new techniques for particle accelerator final focusing for medicine and research, is available at the Department of Physics.

The fellowship period is 3 years. A fourth year may be considered with a workload of 25 % that normally consists of teaching. This is dependent upon the qualification of the applicant and the current needs of the department.

Starting date no later than October 1, 2025.

Job description

In order to improve the performance of future particle accelerator facilities for radiotherapy and irradiation, precise control of where the dose is delivered is crucial. This is the focus of the FRIPRO project SHARP: "Particle accelerator final focus systems for improving precision of dose delivery for medical applications and irradiation test stands". In this project, funded by the Norwegian Research Council, a combination of active plasma lenses and quadrupole magnets will be used to create a compact system for creating precisely controlled particle beams converging towards a target, which can be selected in 3D space. The goal is to design, build, and test a proof-of-concept system for this, demonstrate that it can work also with high intensity beams, and to try to exploit non-linear plasma effects to tailor the beam profiles at the target.

The PhD research fellow’s work will involve both experimental- and numerical simulation work. The experimental work will be mostly carried out at the plasma lens experiment at the CLEAR beamline at CERN in Geneva. The fellow will have the opportunity to travel to CERN for experiment building and beam tests for several weeks each year. The numerical simulation work will include modeling and optimization of beam optics, radiation transport simulation for predicting dose distributions using Geant4, and plasma wakefield simulations on high-performance compute clusters using e.g. HIPACE++.

Towards the end of the project, the adaptation of this technique as a transportable setup for preclinical experiments at the Oslo Proton Therapy Center is of interest. The lab- and research work will be carried out in collaboration with and supervised by the project leader. As part of the PhD program, 30 ECTS credits of coursework (nominally ~½ year of study) in Oslo are expected.

The work in Oslo will be taking place at the accelerator group in the high energy physics section at the physics department. This research group is working on multiple aspects of particle accelerator design, application, and technology, and is a world-leading team in the field of advanced accelerator research. Led by Prof. Erik Adli, we are currently 5 researchers/post docs and 6 PhD/MSc students, and we are looking for an excellent and motivated PhD student to join this team.

Qualification requirements

Required:

• Master’s degree or equivalent in physics or engineering
• Foreign completed degree (M.Sc.-level) corresponding to a minimum of four years in the Norwegian educational system
• Able and willing to travel to CERN/Geneva for experimental work at CLEAR for several weeks per year.

Desired:

• Experience with accelerator test beam experiments, operation of particle accelerators, or interacting with accelerator control systems
• Experience with programming for modeling of physical systems and/or analysis of experimental data, ideally using at least one of Python / MATLAB / C++
• Experience with simulation tools for plasma wakefield, radiation transport, and/or accelerator beam optics
• General experience with experimental physics or electronics
• Good knowledge of several of the following topics: plasma physics, electrodynamics, mathematical modeling, computational physics, high performance computing, accelerator beam physics, high energy physics, biophysics, radiation dosimetry, and collaborative software development
• Documented presentation and communication skills
• For candidates who would like to apply for a fourth year including teaching, good knowledge of Norwegian or another Scandinavian language is strongly preferred.

Language requirements:

• Fluent oral and written communication skills in English
• English requirements for applicants from outside of EU/EEA/EFTA countries and exemptions from the requirements: https://www.mn.uio.no/english/research/phd/regulations/regulations.html#toc8

Candidates without a Master’s degree have until 30 June, 2025 to complete the final exam.