Michael Birse

Biography

Since 2006 I have been a Professor of Theoretical Physics. Before that, from 1986 to 2006, I was a Lecturer then Senior Lecturer in Physics at the (Victoria) University of Manchester. During the period 1992 to 1997 I held an SERC Advanced Fellowship. Before arriving in Manchester, I was a postoc at the University of Maryland (1981--83) and then the University of Washington (1983--85). I have a PhD in Physics from the University of Surrey (1981) and a BA in Phyics from the University of Oxford (1978). I was a member of the editorial board for Journal of Physics G (1991-94) and then its deputy editor (1995--1996). I have also served on the editorial board for Physical Review C (1999--2001). In 2003-04, I was one of the working party that wrote the chapter on Quantum Chromodynamics for the NuPECC Long-Range Plan 2004: Perspectives for Nuclear Physics Research in Europe. From 2002 to 2006, I served on the Board of Directors of the European Centre for Theoretical Studies in Nuclear Physics and Related Areas.

Research Interest

I work with at the intersection between particle and nuclear physics. In particular I am interested in the role played by the symmetries of quantum chromodynamics (QCD) in the structure and interactions of nucleons and mesons. The most important of these symmetries of the strong interaction is a chiral symmetry which is respected by up and down quarks (the ones we are made of) because they have very small masses in QCD. The strong attraction between quarks and antiquarks means that "empty" space is filled with a Bose-Einstein condensate of quark-antiquark pairs, which acts like a Higgs field and hides the chiral symmetry. My work takes advantage of the way pions (the lightest mesons) "remember" this symmetry in their interactions. It makes use of a range of theoretical techniques including effective field theory and the renormalisation group.