Ben Allanach

I'm a professor of theoretical physics at the University of Cambridge, in the Theoretical High Energy Particle Physics Group. To find out the kind of research I've been involved in, watch my TEDx talk (movie). My focus has moved a little to the B-anomalies. These days, I work mostly on collider searches for new physics with other members of the Cambridge Pheno Working Group, especially at the Large Hadron Collider.

Research

• Beyond the Standard Model phenomenology. I am interested in Large Hadron Collider signals of new physics, b physics anomalies and searches at a Future Circular Collider, interpreting data and calculating the supersymmetric spectrum. I retain an interest in neutrino masses and mixings.
• Publications
• SOFTSUSY: a program for calculating supersymmetric spectra.
• Conferences this year:
  • Imperial College "(Re)Interpretations of LHC Data Workshop", April 2-4
  • Talking at Precision Era in High Energy Physics, Slovenia, Potoroz Apr 2019
  • Talking at Rencontres de Moriond Electroweak Interactions and Unified Theories, La Thuile, Italy, 2019
• For prospective PhD students
• Advice and ground rules for (only my) PhD students
• I am currently PI on our £1.7m STFC consolidated grant (1/10/17-30/9/20). You should quote "This work has been partially supported by STFC consolidated grant ST/P000681/1" in the acknowledgements of any publication if you are in our HEP group, or you are a long-term visitor (it pays for our computers, computer officer time and secretarial time).

Recent Public Engagement

• 26 May 2019: panel debate on directions in particle physics at How the Light Gets In
• 18 Sep 2018: quoted in New Scientist article on 10th anniversary of the LHC
• 11 Jul 2018: Plus magazine interviews: What can we see? | What can science see? | What can we agree to look for?
• 1 Jul 2018: Plus magazine interviews on the limits of observation: video | articles
• 1 Jul 2018: interview for Plus article Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle
• 29 Jun-2 Jul 2018: At Also Festival running a quantum physics life-drawing course with Art Macabre and co-hosting the Far Out: astrological dining experience (which was about solar system planets).
• 19 Jun 2018: Wrote Going nowhere fast Aeon magazine essay about the current state of Beyond the Standard Model physics
• Apr 2018: Quantum Selves part of art exhibition at Burgh House, Hampstead, London
• 15 May 2018: "Quantum physics explorations in theory, charcoal and paint": talk at Clare Hall College, Cambridge
• 23 Mar 2018: Physics Beyond the Standard Model talk for Cambridge Philosophical Society meeting "What we don't know about the universe: from the very small to the very big"
• 17 Mar 2018: Wrote Guardian blog on The Fourth Colour
• 14 Mar 2018: BBC Radio 5 Live interview about Stephen Hawking's scientific legacy
• 3 Mar 2018: interviewed for lead article Truth before beauty: Our universe is uglier than we thought in New Scientist
• 10 Dec 2017: talked about the physics of Star Wars on Naked Scientists programme, BBC Radio Cambridgeshire
• Nov 2017: Co-wrote a Guardian blog on anomalies in b decays

Lecturing

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