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InertiaTensor
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Hi everyone, with this thread I kindly seek for advice from more experienced people to hear as many opinions as possible. I will try to explain the situation clearly:
I am doing a 4 years Msci programme in Theoretical Physics, in which I almost completed the third year. During the third year, students were required to present a review project on a topic agreed with their project supervisor. My supervisor is an Amplitudeologist, so my project was an introduction to the novel methods for calculating scattering amplitudes. This was done without any background in quantum field theory and was a short projects (one term only, about 3 months) so I just treated the basics (spinor-helicity formalism, and simple tree-level gluon scattering with the aid of recursion relations), and I admit that I did not have the best of times trying to put together in a short time ideas that I felt I could not fully understand and appreciate.
The next choice I have to make is about my last year's project, and since my aim is to get a PhD, I would like this choice to be tailored into increasing my chances.
One of the options would be to carry on with the same supervisor and advance on scattering amplitude. His opinion is that if I manage to get a good knowledge on the topic, there would be an higher chance of getting a research student position into a group of amplitudeologists, since they would not have to lecture me on the basis of the field. This sounds legit but I am also thinking about the risk of not doing well. If I decide to go for it, I plan to spend the summer studying quantum field theory and reinforcing the basics of the topic to be able to do some serious work next year, but I wonder if this would be enough.
Eventually this is the question: is it worth carrying on with amplitudes? Is this going to restrict my chances for a PhD to only one field? In this case, how much are amplitudeologists requested, and what is your feeling about the future of the field?
Otherwise, what do you think about choosing a different supervisor and going for a completely different project that would allow me to explore some other field of physics?
Thank you for reading this.
I am doing a 4 years Msci programme in Theoretical Physics, in which I almost completed the third year. During the third year, students were required to present a review project on a topic agreed with their project supervisor. My supervisor is an Amplitudeologist, so my project was an introduction to the novel methods for calculating scattering amplitudes. This was done without any background in quantum field theory and was a short projects (one term only, about 3 months) so I just treated the basics (spinor-helicity formalism, and simple tree-level gluon scattering with the aid of recursion relations), and I admit that I did not have the best of times trying to put together in a short time ideas that I felt I could not fully understand and appreciate.
The next choice I have to make is about my last year's project, and since my aim is to get a PhD, I would like this choice to be tailored into increasing my chances.
One of the options would be to carry on with the same supervisor and advance on scattering amplitude. His opinion is that if I manage to get a good knowledge on the topic, there would be an higher chance of getting a research student position into a group of amplitudeologists, since they would not have to lecture me on the basis of the field. This sounds legit but I am also thinking about the risk of not doing well. If I decide to go for it, I plan to spend the summer studying quantum field theory and reinforcing the basics of the topic to be able to do some serious work next year, but I wonder if this would be enough.
Eventually this is the question: is it worth carrying on with amplitudes? Is this going to restrict my chances for a PhD to only one field? In this case, how much are amplitudeologists requested, and what is your feeling about the future of the field?
Otherwise, what do you think about choosing a different supervisor and going for a completely different project that would allow me to explore some other field of physics?
Thank you for reading this.