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Department of Physics

The Cavendish Laboratory
 

Biography

Biography

Mark Thomson is Professor of Experimental Particle Physics at the University of Cambridge. He has over 1100 publications covering a number of major areas in High Energy Particle Physics. His main research interests are in electron-positron collider physics, neutrino physics and the development of novel and powerful reconstruction techniques for cutting edge detector technologies. In addition to his research activities, he is the author of “Modern Particle Physics”. He is currently on secondment to the department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) and is the Executive Chair of the Science and Technology Facilities Council, one of the nine councils of UK Research and Innovation.

Research

Mark Thomson’s main research activities are centred around three main areas. He is one of the leading figures in neutrino physics. Until April 2018, he was the co-spokesperson of the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE), which is the next generation of long-baseline neutrino oscillation experiment, aiming to discover CP violation in the leptonic sector. He played a leading role in the development of the first automatic reconstruction software to process images from liquid argon detectors such as DUNE and MicroBooNE. He is also the world-leading expert on high-granularity particle flow calorimetry, which is drives the design of future collider detectors at the ILC, CLIC and beyond and was central to the development of the detector designs and the physics cases for the ILC and CLIC.

Publications

Key publications: 

Modern Particle Physics, Thomson, M.A., Cambridge University Press (2013).

Improved search for muon-neutrino to electron-neutrino transitions in MINOS, MINOS collaboration, Phys. Rev. Lett 107 (2011).

Particle Flow Calorimetry and the PandoraPFA Algorithm, Thomson, M.A, NIMA 611 (2009).

Measurement of the mass and width of the W boson, OPAL Collaboration, Eur. Phys. J. C45 (2006).

Precise determination of the Z resonance parameters at LEP, OPAL Collaboration, Eur. Phys. J. C19 (2001).

Executive Chair of the Science and Technology Facilities Council
Professor of Experimental Particle Physics
Professorial Fellow of Emmanuel College
Professor Mark  Thomson

Contact Details

HEP Group
Cavendish Laboratory,
JJ Thomson Avenue
Cambridge
CB3 0HE
+44 (0)1223 765122

Affiliations

Specialities: