The High Energy Physics Laboratory [1] of EPFL, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne, invites applications for a PhD student position in experimental particle physics. The successful candidate will join the LHCb collaboration in which our lab is strongly involved. LHCb [2] is a particle-physics experiment running at CERN's Large Hadron Collider and dedicated to flavour physics.

In 2025, the lab’s LHCb activities will be expanded through an SNSF-funded programme focused on charm physics. The successful candidate will join this programme, and contribute to the measurements of CP-violation in radiative decays of charm mesons with the recently upgraded LHCb detector. Their PhD thesis will focus on the reconstruction of these decays through novel reconstruction techniques of converted photons, and on the physics analysis of the LHC Run 3 dataset.

The position, which also involves teaching responsibilities at the bachelor’s or master’s level, becomes available from September 1, 2025. The selected PhD student will need to enrol in the Physics program (EDPY) of the EPFL doctoral school [3], and the employment runs up to a total of four years. Doctoral school information and employment conditions at EPFL may be consulted online [3-5]. Applicants are expected to hold a master’s degree (or equivalent) in physics at the start of employment. The ideal candidate has a strong motivation for fundamental research, and has received education in Particle Physics. Experience with data analysis, computer programming and/or track reconstruction is an advantage.

Applicants should prepare a motivation letter, CV, scans of the higher-institution grade records, and contact information of three references willing to write a recommendation. The application should be submitted to the EPFL Doctoral Program in Physics (EDPY) following the instructions in [6] by the deadline of April 30, 2025. Please indicate at least particle physics as scientific interests, as well as Laurent Dufour under Potential host laboratories (expected to be available as option in the second half March), or (when applying earlier) in the Comment, noting Prof. Fred Blanc as potential host institute. Note that the letters of recommendation should be submitted by the references by the same deadline following the request they will receive.

More information can be obtained from Dr. Laurent Dufour (laurent.dufour@cern.ch).

The lab also has another opening for a PhD student position with Dr. Chiara Perrina in connection with the DAMPE and HERD experiments. Applying to both openings with a single application is possible; in this case please indicate both names under Potential host laboratories or Comment.

[1] https://www.epfl.ch/labs/lphe

[2] https://lhcb-outreach.web.cern.ch

[3] https://www.epfl.ch/education/phd/programs/edpy-physics

[4] https://www.epfl.ch/education/phd/doctoral-studies-structure/doctoral-students-salary

[5] https://www.epfl.ch/about/working/working-at-epfl/employment-conditions

[6] https://www.epfl.ch/education/admission/admission-2/phd-admission-criteria-and-application