Ben Allanach

I'm a professor of theoretical physics at the University of Cambridge, in the Theoretical High Energy Particle Physics Group and a Quantum Selves artist. 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:
  • Planck 2020, Durham(?)
  • Flavour Physics Conference. Rencontres du Vietnam(?)
  • LHC 2020 (Paris) 20-30 May(?)
  • LHCb Annual Meeting 2020, Jan, Huddersfield
  • Talking at Moriond 2020 (QCD)
  • 3rd FCC Physics and Experiments Workshop, Jan 2020, CERN
  • Convenor of Annual Xmas Theory Meeting, Dec 2019, Durham
• For prospective PhD students
• Advice and ground rules for (only my) PhD students

Recent Public Engagement

• 1 Jan 2020: Viewpoint article "Learning to Love Anomalies", CERN Courier, Jan/Feb 2020, p37
• 6 Dec 2019: Interview on The Naked Scientists, BBC 5 Live, Radio National Australia and BBC Radio Cambridgeshire on the putative X17 signal
• 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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