The Department of Physics and Astronomy offers courses and research opportunities leading to the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in the areas of astronomy and astrophysics, atomic and molecular physics, low and intermediate energy nuclear physics, condensed matter physics, and particle physics. More detailed descriptions of each of these options is available at https://pa.as.uky.edu/pa-faculty-research.
Opportunities exist for experimental, theoretical, and computational, and observational research. Excellent laboratory facilities and library materials are available. Major facilities located within the Department are the six million volt Van de Graaff accelerator and the Center for Advanced Materials. Computational resources include the Lipscomb HPC cluster and access to XSEDE, NERSC, TACC, JLab and BNL. The Department is active in research at many national laboratories, including Jefferson Lab (Virginia), Oak Ridge National Lab (Tennessee), Los Alamos National Lab (New Mexico), Argonne National Lab. (Illinois), Brookhaven National Lab (New York), Triangle Universities Nuclear Lab (North Carolina), National High Magnetic Field Facility (Florida), and Lawrence Berkeley Lab (California) as well as international laboratories including Paul Scherrer Institute (Switzerland), TRIUMF (Vancouver), and MAX-lab (Sweden). In astronomy our students conduct research at facilities including the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (West Virginia), Arecibo Observatory (Puerto Rico), Kitt Peak National Observatory (Arizona), McDonald Observatory (Texas), and the Hubble Space Telescope, and participate in collaborations including Sloan Digital Sky Survey-IV (SDSS-IV) and the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST). Such activities expose our graduate students to state-of-the-art instrumentation and world-class researchers.
Admission Requirements
In addition to the admissions requirements of the Graduate School, the Department of Physics & Astronomy requires graduate applicants to have a sound foundation in undergraduate physics. This foundation will normally include advanced courses in classical mechanics, electromagnetism and quantum mechanics. Applicants are encouraged to take the GRE physics subject exam. Applicants wishing to apply for financial aid in the form of a teaching assistantship, research assistantship or fellowship must supply letters of recommendation from three individuals familiar with their academic capabilities. Such applicants must also submit a written statement of their interests and background in physics.
Admissions requirements are the same for the M.S. and the Ph.D. programs except that applicants for the Ph.D. must possess an interest in carrying out original research at the advanced level.
Degree Requirements
The following three requirements must be satisfied before taking the qualifier exam to become a PhD candidate. Following candidacy, students must complete an original research project and submit their PhD dissertation.
1) Core courses - Core courses for Ph.D. students are PHY 504 , 611 , 613 , 614 , 615 and 632 . The average of a student’s final grades for these six courses must be B or higher (GPA > 3.0), with no more than one final grade of C. Students failing to meet this grade requirement may repeat core courses or esle study independently and take special examinations, administered by present or past instructors of the individual courses and designed to ensure that the student has mastered the course material. Also, students who have mastered the contents of one or more core courses prior to entering the program may request special examinations in lieu of taking the courses. All requests for special examinations will be made to the Director of Graduate Studies (DGS), and the time of the exam will be determined by the DGS in consultation with the instructor. Students will be expected to meet the core course requirement by the end of their sixth semester.
2) Ph.D. breadth requirements - Prior to qualification for the Ph.D., students are required to pass (with grades of A or B) approved topical graduate courses in three different areas. The regularly offered topical courses are 554 (atomic physics) , 591 , 592 , 605 , and 639 (astrophysics) , 524 , 525 , and 624 (condensed matter physics) , 555 and 630 (nuclear physics) , 556 , 605 , 616 , and 716 (particle physics) , 545 and 546 (radiation medicine) , and 535 (advanced laboratory) . Students may also include graduate courses taught outside the Department upon written consent of the DGS. [Note that PHY 605 (“Gravity”) may be used to satisfy the breadth requirement in either astrophysics or particle physics.]
3) Early research experience - New Ph.D. students are required to enroll in a 1 credit hour course (at present PHY 770 ) during each of their first two semesters in the program. The purpose of this course is to introduce the students to faculty research programs and opportunities. Each week, students hear about the research programs of one or more faculty members. By the end of the semester, students are asked to submit brief written doucments describing research interests and capabilities. Regular grades are assigned for this course. Prior to qualification for the Ph.D., students must complete at least 3 credit hours of a research course, hold a research assistantship for at least one semester, or participate in research during a summer semester. This latter option will be strongly encouraged. In all cases, the student will write a brief description of the research activity, and the faculty mentor will write a brief evaluation of the student’s effort. Both documents are submitted to the DGS and become a part of the student’s file.
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