The 2008 IoP Particle Physics Conference

Every year the great and the good of the UK HEP community (and a load of Ph.D. students) gather for the annual meeting of the particle physics group of the Institute of Physics. Over three days at the beginning of April the University of Lancaster played host to this year's conference.

The main programme was split into plenary sessions, which gave an overview of research in the field, and parallel sessions, which gave third year Ph.D. students (among others) a chance to present a talk about their research at a conference. The plenary sessions were great as they lifted your eyes up from your little corner of research to see something of the bigger picture (in the interests of shameful self-promotion of the Imperial HEP group, Prof. Jim Virdee opened the first plenary with a really interesting talk on the work that's been done to get the LHC detectors ready for LHC turn on, as well as some of the development that's been required to get to this stage with some really nice photos of how CMS has come together over the years) whilst the parallel sessions not only gave us third years a chance to present our work but also to see what everyone else has been up to (again, all the presentations that I saw by people from Imperial were excellent). There was also a poster session with a heavy T2K flavour, although there was a very interesting poster outlining the excellent work that's being done by the guys working on the Front End Test Stand...

As well as the academic program, an evening out in Lancaster and a conference dinner allowed for plenty of time to catch up with those who've been away on long term attachments (I think it was the first time that all of my year have been in the same place since our first year lectures!) as well as an opportunity to meet other people in the field. The night out in Lancaster saw a load of students do their best to take over a pizzeria, several very pleasant, very local pubs and (so I'm told) a closely fought drinking contest.

There was also an STFC Town Meeting during the conference, which given the recent funding problems, was a interesting introduction to physics politics. Never let it be said that physicists aren't passionate about what they do!

It was great to take some time out to be reminded of what we're all working towards, see what everyone's up to and catch up with people who haven't been around Imperial for a while but now it's back to the real world. I'm sure others can fill in any details that I've missed out...