Mark Lancaster, FRS

I was born, raised and received my early education (St. Mary's) in the Riviera of the North, Blackpool. I obtained a MA degree in Physics from Keble College, Oxford in 1988 and continued at Oxford for my DPhil (1988-1992) in high energy experimental particle physics. In 1992-1996 I was based at the DESY (Hamburg) electron-proton collider, HERA as a member of the ZEUS experiment as a SERC fellow for Bristol University and then as a research associate at Oxford University. In 1996 I moved to Lawrence Berkeley Lab (California) as a research fellow and worked at the Fermilab Tevatron collider (Chicago) as part of the CDF experiment. I took up a lecturer position at UCL in 1999. In 2001 I took a sabbatical year to work for Quadriga Worldwide PLC developing satellite IP-based delivery software. In 2004 I was awarded the Moseley Medal by the Institute of Physics, elected a Fellow of the Institute and promoted to Reader. In 2008 I was promoted to a Professorship and was a Professor at UCL until 2019. I took up my current Professorial position at the University of Manchester in 2018.

I've served on a number of departmental and university committees: undergraduate and postgraduate teaching committees, UCL Council, Academic Board, Ethical Investment committee. I was director of Teaching at UCL from 2009-2011 and head of the High Energy Physics Research Group from 2008-2016.

External to Manchester, I've served on the STFC grants panel (2004-2009), the STFC CMS oversight committee (2004-2008), chair of the STFC RAL advisory/oversight committee (2012-2016) and as a non-core member of the STFC Science Board (2014-2016). I was a member of the IoP Teachers Course Committee (2005-2010), a member (and chair) of the IoP's High Energy Physics Group Committee (2008-2014) and a member of the IoP Science and Innvoation committee (2010-2014). In 2010 I chaired the IoP PP2020 committee which prepared a forward look at research in particle physics and its impact on society and UK industry. I was a member of the CERN LHC Committee from 2014-2016 and chaired the STFC review of the ATLAS/CMS upgrade programmes in 2016. I became a member of the editorial board for the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Physics in 2018. I was elected as the co-spokesperson of the Fermilab Muon g-2 experiment from 2018-2020. In 2022 I was a member of the panel that undertook a strategic review of UK particle physics on behalf of STFC. I was awarded the Chadwick Medal by the Institute of Physics in 2021 and in 2023 elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society and the American Physical Society. In 2024 I was appointed as the Scientific Advisor to the UK's CERN Council Delegates, as a member of the UK Committee on CERN (UKCC) and a UK representative for drafting the 2026 European Strategy on particle physics. In 2026, I was awarded the Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics as a member of the Fermilab Muon g-2 experiment.

My past research interests have been in three areas of experimental high energy particle physics. Firstly measurements of the structure of the proton and developing our understanding of the strong nuclear force as embodied in the theory of quantum chromodynamics (QCD). Secondly precision measurements of the W-boson, the particle responsible for mediating the weak nuclear force, in particular precision measurements of its mass and lifetime. Thirdly, developing state-of-the-art computer software solutions and high speed electronics for data processing and reduction. This research has been based at two particle accelerators in Hamburg (HERA) and Chicago (Tevatron). I was the UK PI for the CDF experiment from 2002-2013 and CDF's Standard Model/EWK convenor from 1998-2000 and 2008-2013.

My present research is as part of two muon particle-physics experiments and a cavity-based axion search experiment using quantum technologies. I am presently the UK PI for the g-2 and Mu2e experiments.

The Fermilab Mu2e experiment is hoping to be the first experiment to observe a lepton-flavour violating, neutrinoless transition of a muon into an electron. Such an observation would be certain to signal new physics beyond our present understanding of fundamental particles since in the Standard Model the rate of this decay is approximately 10^-50 that of the usual muon decay producing two neutrinos.

The Fermilab g-2 experiment has made the world's most precise measurement of any quantity at a particle accelerator: the muon's anomalous magnetic moment. This presently differs from the SM predictions by 2 to 5 standard deviations depending on the methodology used to determine the SM value. Subsequent measurements and refinements in the SM prediction will establish unambiguously whether this is a sign of new physics or not.

To explain the fact that nobody has measured a finite neutron or proton electric dipole moment requires a yet-to-be-observed dynamical mechanism. Without this mechanism, the quarks inside protons and neutrons are required to be aligned, unnaturally, to one part in 10 billion. At the heart of this mechanism is the last undiscovered particle in the Standard Model: the axion. The axions presence is inferred through the emission of microwaves in a resonant cavity within a magnetic field. The power in these microwaves is tiny: a yocto (10^-24) watt, but recent advances in quantum technology make detection possible. We are building a proof-of-principle axion detector at Manchester.

A list of my research publications can be found here and the most significant ones to which I have contributed here .