The University of Sheffield
Description of the organization and its main tasks
The University of Sheffield (UoS) is a public research University in Sheffield, England. The university is widely recognized as a leading research and teaching university both in the UK and in the world. The QS World University Rankings in 2015-16 placed Sheffield as the 80th university worldwide and 16th in the UK.
The department of Physics and Astronomy a teaching department with typically 400-500 undergraduates and a wide range of research activities including high energy particle physics (HEPP). The HEPP group is active in a number of global particle physics collaborations including ATLAS, T2K, DUNE and HyperK which operate at large international labs such as CERN (CH), Fermilab (US) and J-PARC (JP). In addition, the HEPP group works in a number of areas of applications of particle physics instrumentation and know-how to real world problems including the use of robotics, homeland security and nuclear security.
In CHANCE, the University of Sheffield will have responsibility for building plastic scintillator-based instrumentation for the passive characterization of nuclear waste materials. The HEPP group also has significant activities in applications of particle physics technology to real world problems, since 2011 Professor Thompson has expertise in leading teams to build muon tomography instrumentation for homeland security systems (scanning cargo containers for illicit nuclear material) and for the monitoring of carbon dioxide in carbon capture and storage (CCS).
Role, responsibilities and activities within the Project
The UoS’s key role is within WP4 where it will be a key contributor to all of the subtasks of that work package. In particular UoS will have responsibility for the development, construction and deployment of a plastic scintillator based muon tomography (MT) system. The system will initially be built and tested at Sheffield and subsequently transported to a Bristol-based test centre where it will be co-deployed with the Bristol RPC-based system.
Subsequent tests of the joint MT system, in the UK with sources from Sellafield and SCK-CEN and at external sites out of the UK will involve all Sheffield personnel, both in the practical operation of the systems and the subsequent data analysis and interpretation.
Contact person
Professor Lee THOMPSON
Email: l [dot] thompson [at] sheffield [dot] ac [dot] uk
Phone: +44 114 2224577
Personal web site: www.sheffield.ac.uk/physics/contacts/lee-thompson
Website
University of Sheffield: www.shef.ac.uk
Department of Physics and Astronomy: www.shef.ac.uk/physics
Particle Physics group: www.shef.ac.uk/physics/research/pppa