There have been a number of models developed for atomic nuclei which work particularly well for stable or near stable nuclei. However, it is important that we investigate if these models are true for the far from stable nuclei, known as exotic nuclei. These exotic nuclei are ones which have a large imbalance in the number of protons and neutrons present, such nuclei will be the ones of interest in this PhD project. When nuclei are in the excited states they usually emit gamma rays. If the properties of these gamma rays are measured then they can be used to determine certain properties of nuclei, such as their shapes. Gamma ray spectroscopy is one of the most efficient ways to determine properties of nuclei as gamma rays are a highly penetrating form of radiation and can be detected with good efficiency and a high energy resolution when using semiconductor germanium detectors. If there are a large number of these detectors used then multiple gamma rays can be detected at the same time and a technique called gamma ray coincidence spectroscopy can be used. There are some facilities in which this can be done, such as Jurogamll at JYFL in Finland and Gammasphere in Chicago, where a large array of semiconductor detectors has been constructed. These are two of the facilities in which experiments will be conducted throughout this PhD project. The nuclei that we are interested in are often produced in reactions with very small production probability. This means that there is a challenge to develop channel selection techniques in which these weakly produced nuclei can be selected from a background of the more strongly populated nuclei. The nuclei that will be of special interest in this PhD project are the octupole deformed nuclei, also known as "pear shaped" nuclei. One nucleus that is suspected to have this shape is the 116Ba nucleus. There is an experiment scheduled in the Legnaro National Laboratory in Italy to study this exotic 116Ba nucleus and part of the PhD project would involve helping to run that experiment and to analyse the data. This experiment will involve using the new Galileo gamma ray spectrometer along with Euclides charged particle detector and the Neutron Wall array of neutron detectors. When this analysis is complete there will be following experiments that will be carried out in the other laboratories.

Biodiversity is under threat from a number of drivers of global change with detrimental implications for coastal habitats. Of particular concern is the increase of invasive nonnative species (INNS), which continues to grow and shows no indication of saturation. In coastal and estuary systems, aquatic infrastructure, such as recreational marinas, are important entry points for INNS, acting as 'stepping-stone' habitats for their subsequent spread. As such the presence of INNS in these locations has been widely reported, however, many of their associated damaging ecological impacts are not fully understood and remain unquantified. There is a growing focus on the presence of INNS in marinas, however limited attention has been made towards the associated ecological impacts. For example, the occurrence of 'spill-over' of invading species into adjacent sites has not been fully explored. Furthermore, little is known regarding the connectivity of INNS between marinas that exist as part of a local network and whether secondary spread from initial introduction sites can lead to isolated populations which develop unique sets of traits that underlie fitness and rapid population expansion. For INNS, however, that have been moved passively, such as between marinas via recreational boating, the occurrence of such 'trait sorting' is unknown. Crustacea are considered one of the world's worst invading taxa, possessing a range of life history traits that are conducive to successful establishment, including short generation time and broad environmental tolerance. Caprellidae are a particular notable group, exemplifying these traits and supporting high numbers of non-native amphipod species. One such example is the globally invasive Japanese skeleton shrimp Caprella mutica, which originates from north-east Asia and has become one of the most rapidly invading species in Europe. Associated with aquatic infrastructure and colonising habitats such as floating pontoons, mooring ropes and aquaculture cages, there are now numerous reports of the presence of C. mutica across the UK, many which are closely linked to recreational marinas. Having been first reported in Scotland in 2002, C. mutica was recorded in the Clyde estuary in 2006, however, it was considered to have been present before this time yet it has not been thoroughly studied within this system. Within the Clyde estuary there exists a local network of well-established marinas supporting a high degree of recreational boat use with connections to the broader Scottish West Coast region. Therefore, this provides an opportunity for understanding the invasion of an INNS within a marina network and the potential for overspill into neighbouring habitats/infrastructure and subsequent ecological impact. As is common with INNS, C. mutica has been shown to be highly aggressive with such behaviour linked to reproductive success and offspring survival, however it is not known how this differs between invaded locations on a local (or global) scale. In this context, understanding metrics related to impact such as differences in life-history traits and behaviour between different populations is vital because of their known links to INNS impact and potential predictive power for future invasions. During the last decade, marine invasive species have received increased attention from both scientists and policy makers, however ecological knowledge to address their impacts lags behind that of other systems. The aim of this project is to therefore investigate the role of recreational marinas in the facilitation of impact of an invasive species. By doing so we will elucidate mechanisms underlying impact, providing vital and lacking information on the interaction of novel habitats and species invasions in coastal systems.

Abstracts are not currently available in GtR for all funded research. This is normally because the abstract was not required at the time of proposal submission, but may be because it included sensitive information such as personal details.

Our preliminary activity proposal aims to enable the UK to co-develop the Conceptual Design of the next generation of gravitational-wave observatory infrastructure. While the current 'Advanced' generation of GW observatories continue to deliver science from GW signals coming from our local Universe, new, 'next-generation' infrastructure is needed to realise the full transformative potential of GW astronomy. The next-generation GW network, consisting of new US 'Cosmic Explorer' (CE) and European 'Einstein Telescope' (ET) observatory nodes, will provide guaranteed discoveries in astrophysics, cosmology, and fundamental physics. CE and ET are now entering a design phase, including delivery of conceptual designs to go a factor of 10 or more beyond the sensitivity of current GW detectors. This places ultra-stringent requirements on isolating the mirrors from all sources of external disturbance and requires precision measurement technology which pushes the state-of-the-art across numerous fields, including mirror suspension design, coating development and control systems. Further, on the data collection and analysis front, there is a requirement to develop theoretical waveform models whose performance is robust in the sensitivity regime of next-generation detectors, where hundreds of thousands of signals per year are expected. Existing processing tools and digital infrastructure do not scale up to the analysis challenge presented by the anticipated detection rates, thus a paradigm shift in software and hardware designs will be required. By building on UK expertise in these areas, conceptual designs for relevant subsystems and subsystem components of the next-generation observatories will be developed. More precisely, we will target delivery of conceptual designs that are aligned with the sensitivity improvements (a factor of 10) and consequent increase in the volume of the Universe probed (a factor of ~1000) discussed earlier. As well as a transformative increase in rate, this will lead to observation of loud sources enabling precision astronomy and astrophysics of compact object sources, enabling a global vision of mapping GW sources out to the edge of the Universe, revealing processes in the development of our Cosmos obtainable by no other means. The UK contribution to next-generation GW infrastructures is fully integrated within the CE and ET projects. We describe our project in terms of seven Work Packages (WP0-WP6) introduced here: WP0: management; WP1 Suspensions: to develop a conceptual design for the suspensions systems for the heavier masses in next-generation observatories that are essential for sensitivity improvement; WP2: mirror coatings: to develop characterisation and optimisation strategies for development of coatings of greater than 600mm diameter; WP3 inertial control: development of aspects of suspension/active seismic sensing and control; WP4 interferometer sensing and controls: conceptual design of a robust interferometer sensing and control scheme for interferometers of extended baselines; WP5: Science traceability matrix: determination of the impact of instrument design on target science deliverables; WP6: Digital infrastructure: design/prototyping of digital infrastructures for real-time operation in the signal rich era.

Abstracts are not currently available in GtR for all funded research. This is normally because the abstract was not required at the time of proposal submission, but may be because it included sensitive information such as personal details.