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23rd STFC Nuclear Physics Summer School (2026)
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Description
Welcome to the 2026 STFC Nuclear Physics Summer School - we are very much looking forward to meeting you all in Aberdeen on 26th July.
Accommodation:
Student accommodation is provided at the Hillhead Student Village (see map at the end of this email), you will be checking in at the reception of the Central building (also called Headspace building), and your room will be in:
Carnegie Court
Hillhead Student Village
Don St
Aberdeen
AB24 1WU
Check in: 2pm onwards (24h reception available)
Check out: 10am
Single occupancy en-suite rooms are booked for you. Laundry facilities exist on campus; towels are provided but may not be changed during the two-week stay so you may also want to bring your own, additional towels – especially if you plan to brave the beach!
Accessible parking is available nearby.
Reception (26/07):
There will be a reception event to welcome you and to kick-off the Summer School with a small induction presentation. This will be in the TV room of Fyfe house on the Hillhead Student Village campus at 18:00 on Sunday 26th of July, we will provide some pizza and soft drinks.
If you already know that you will miss this welcoming event due to late arrival, please let us know.
Meals:
Breakfast is provided in the Central building (also called Headspace building) of Hillhead Student Village served between 07:00-08:30 (including Saturday and Sunday). Area available in building to eat breakfast or it can be taken back to accommodation.
Lunches will be provided at the university students union food court on the main university campus, a short walk from the lecture venue (see timetable below for exact timings). On the weekend (Sat 1st and Sun 2nd Aug.) you will need to make alternative arrangements for your meals, but breakfast will still be provided.
You will receive a pre-paid card for use Mon-Fri both weeks (£8.50 per day). The card can be used at the following places:
Rock Salt Food Court (Students’ Union Building)
11.30am - 2.30pm
Sir Duncan Rice Library Café
9am – 2pm
Please return your card to Reception when you check out.
Dinner: A three course meal (no card needed for this) will be served Mon – Fri each week at 6pm (Food Court, 1st Floor, Student Union Building)
A school banquet is scheduled for 5th of August at the Amarone restaurant in the city centre:
Amarone Aberdeen
257 Union Street
Aberdeen
AB11 6BR
WiFi at the uni:
The university of Aberdeen provides eduroam and this is expected to be the main way to connect to the internet.
Teaching materials:
The teaching material will be uploaded on the indico site for future access after the school, but not necessarily in advance of the lectures (this will depend on each Lecturer).
In addition to the lectures, you will be placed in groups of ~8 students for afternoon tutorial sessions led by a post-doc, which will last an hour. The main purpose of these sessions is to discuss the lectures from that day, and to form questions as a group for the Q&A sessions with the lecturers. Points for discussion and/or small problem/question related to the material taught on that day may also be provided.
Teaching and other venues:
The teaching venue for the morning lectures will be on the ground floor of the New King's building (start at 9am sharp!), which is a 15-20 minutes' walk from the accommodation. The "Lecturer Q&A" sessions will be held between 17:00-18:00 in the same room - these are open sessions during which you can ask the lecturers anything. Questions typically are focussed on that day’s lectures or current research, but can also extend into questions on career paths, etc., for example.
The "Student talks" in the evenings will be in the same lecture theatre and we are aiming to finish these by 20:00 (see tentative timetable for sent via email for when your talk is scheduled).
Student talks:
The duration of "Student talks" will be 10 minutes talk + 2 minutes for questions. Please do stick to this time, so we don’t overrun this late session. The presentation talks should be in your research topic. It is an opportunity for you to practice presentation skills and an opportunity to let others know who you are and what you do.
Aberdeen Sports Village Access:
Aberdeen Sports Village are delighted to offer an exclusive 14-day membership at a discounted rate for all Summer School students. To redeem this offer, please email membership@aberdeensportsvillage.com who will process the membership for you. This membership is £20.00 and there is an additional charge of £5.00 for a membership card, however you are encouraged to download the Aberdeen Sports Village app to use for bookings, check in alongside member benefits. If you have any questions, please email the address above.
Other miscellaneous information:
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Please bring your own notepads/pens etc. for hand-written notes and if you need a printed version of the programme, for environmental reasons we will not be providing these.
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Those planning on joining the skills session for ROOT and Geant4 you should come with a working installation (no time will be allocated during the session to debug installations). For ROOT, a relatively recent version 6 (i.e. 6.32) should be fine, but for geant4 please specifically install version
11.3.211.4.0. Due to the way geant is developed it can have more compatibility issues between the syntax of different versions, but the principles taught during the workshop will translate between versions. - Other skill sessions require:
- hfbtho, axial code for solving the Hartree-Fock-Bogoliubov equations in a harmonic-oscillator basis. (see this document for instructions)
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Python, NumPy, and SciPy. If you don't already have these installed in your stystem, they can be installed all together via Anaconda Python.
Maps links:
Accommodation: https://maps.app.goo.gl/Uu16ub3BFxYRMZ2a8
Uni food court: https://maps.app.goo.gl/WKN88CA7uV8x9d8Y7
Teaching venue: https://maps.app.goo.gl/18vN1MLeaU7ZW8vX7
Amarone restaurant: https://maps.app.goo.gl/pUrP2yEqK4BjAhoEA
This year's Summer School has been kindly support by a number of sponsors:
