​Enrico who is also from The University of Manchester, studying physics and theoretical physics, has been looking at Dark Matter this summer, looking at a new way of observing Dark Matter particle collisions. He was specifically studying how when the nuclei collide, the electrons lag behind; an effect that could potentially be used to study Dark Matter. 

Enrico worked on simulating a potential future detector and analysing data from that simulated detector. When he started it was widely considered unlikely for observations of the effect to be possible but throughout his time here (and with thanks to his work!) they slowly but surely have seemed more and more likely. 

    Enrico is very praising of the people he worked with and enjoyed the tight-knit community and his work so much that he is now looking into a career in Dark Matter. As well as his supervisors and other STFC staff, he was working with a professor and student from Imperial College London and had the opportunity to attend the biannual dark matter meeting. Notably the community is from a wide variety of backgrounds and it seemed important to him that he gets on well with those he’s met. He explained it’s an area with a lot going on, with papers being published on the topic frequently and a lot of potential, as well as a having good balance between physics and software. 

    Moving forward Enrico is at an advantage in the relevant modules after brushing up on all the background physics necessary to do his research; and has the added confidence boost to go with it. The placement helped Enrico realise how close you are as a student to writing code and doing research professionally, in part through finding errors in code written by others - but this has also helped him learn to check his own work thoroughly. His supervisor enjoys explaining to anyone who shows interest and explained anything Enrico asked, and had the knowledge and extensive experience to do so.

Supervisor: Pawel Majewski

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