Applications are invited for several Ph. D. positions funded by the ERC (European Research Council) to work on the 'EFT-XYZ' (Effective Field Theories to understand and predict the Nature of the XYZ Exotic Hadrons) project-advanced-ERC-2023 of Nora Brambilla at the Technical University of Munich.

The project aims at unravelling a QCD derived description of the XYZ exotics observed in the sector of two heavy quarks at the accelerator experiments, based on new nonrelativistic effective field theories and novel lattice QCD calculations. Targets are all aspects of the XYZs: spectra, decays, transitions, production and evolution in the Quark Gluon Plasma produced in heavy ion collisions. The project includes interdisciplinary applications to other fields featuring strongly correlated systems (in BSM or in molecular/condensed matter physics) and the developments on new tools in perturbation theory and in computational methods (gradient flow), including quantum computing. We look for ambitious candidates with a strong drive and background or interest in one or more of these areas: quantum field theories and effective quantum field theories, lattice QCD, non-equilibrium evolution in quantum field theory, finite temperature QCD, phenomenology of XYZs, higher order perturbative calculations inside effective field theories.

The particle and nuclear theory group at the TUM School of Natural science is lead by Prof. N. Brambilla and Prof. A. Vairo. The interests of the group span over a wide range of topics in particle physics phenomenology and effective field theories (quarkonium, heavy quarks, precise calculation of SM parameters, strongly interacting systems), physics of the early Universe (dark matter, leptogenesis), physics of heavy ion collisions (quarkonium and jet suppression) and nonequilibrium physics. We deal both with perturbative techniques (high order loop calculations) and nonperturbative methods (lattice QCD).

For more information on the group research activity see the web page https://einrichtungen.ph.nat.tum.de//T30f/

The research activity will be performed also inside the Excellence Cluster group "Origins" (https://www.origins-cluster.de) established in Munich, the Quarkonium Working Group (https://qwg.ph.nat.tum.de), the Focus Group on "Effective Field theories and Lattice" at the Institute of Advanced Studies of the TUM, the Munich Data Science Institute, the TUMQCD lattice collaboration and the Excellence Cluster "Munich Center for Quantum Science and Technology".

Candidates for the PhD position are expected to have a master/diploma (or equivalent) degree in one of the following fields: theoretical particle physics, high energy physics, lattice QCD, hadron and nuclear physics.

We are opening these Ph. D. positions now and we will start the first screening of the candidates immediately, with the aim of filling the positions soon, but applications are welcome at any time, as the project lasts for 5 years. Th starting date is flexible.