Information sheet - University of Cape Town

Department of Physics
RW James Building, University of Cape Town, Rondebosch, 7701
Tel: +27 (0) 21 650 3339
Fax: +27 (0) 21 650 3342
www.phy.uct.ac.za
Information sheet
October 2012
The Physics Department in the Science Faculty of the University of Cape Town is a medium-sized
department with activities covering several of the major fields of physics. It has a complement of some 14
full time academic staff, about 35 MSc and PhD students, a fourth year BSc(Honours) physics class of about
8-10 students, and a third year BSc physics class of around 18 students. In addition there are very large first
year service courses.
The department is housed in the RW James Building on the Upper Campus of UCT, with offices,
undergraduate laboratories, a mechanical workshop, an electrical workshop, a departmental library, a
postgraduate computer lab, a seminar room, and some research laboratories.
Research
The Department of Physics is accommodated in the R W James Building, which houses laboratories
equipped for nuclear physics, solid state and nanophysics, and physics education research.
Additional facilities available to the Department are provided by iThemba Laboratories for Accelerator
Based Sciences (200 MeV cyclotron and a 5 MeV Van de Graaff accelerator).
There is overlap of interest between members of the Physics Department and several cognate
departments, eg Mathematics and Applied Mathematics, Astronomy, Materials Engineering,
Computational Mechanics, etc.
Major areas of research interest at present include:
Experimental nuclear physics at iThemba LABS comprising:
(a) Gamma ray spectroscopy with the AFRODITE array; (b) Giant resonance reactions with the magnetic
spectrometer; (c) Fast neutron physics. See http://www.tlabs.ac.za
Theoretical Physics comprising:
(a) Research within the Centre for Theoretical and Mathematical Physics; (b) Structure of elementary
particles; (c) Weak interactions; (d) Quantum field theory, quantum electrodynamics and chromodynamics
in free space, in the cavity and at extreme temperatures and pressures; (e) Renormalization group
equations, both linear and nonlinear (Color Glass Condensate); (f) Nonlinear effects in QCD at high
densities; (g) Phenomenology of heavy ion reactions; (h) Quark gluon plasma; (i) Nuclear structure and
models.
“Our Mission is to be an outstanding teaching and research university, educating for life and addressing the challenges facing our society.”

Experimental high energy physics, comprising:
(a) Research within the UCT-CERN Research Centre; (b) Relativistic heavy ion collisions within the ALICE
collaboration at CERN; (c) High energy proton-proton collisions within the ATLAS collaboration at CERN.
Nanophysics and solid state physics comprising:
(a) Research within the Nanosciences Innovation Centre; (b) Structural and electrical properties of thin
films; (c) X-ray diffraction studies of strain fields and residual stress analysis; (d) Single electron transport
and interactions.
Applied Physics comprising:
(a) Positron Emission Particle Tracking at PEPT Cape Town, iThemba LABS; (b) Particulate flow and
interaction characterization in engineering and biological systems by computational and mechanistic
modelling; (c) Radiation transport modelling in industrial and medical systems; (d) Applied nuclear physics
using neutrons; (e) Geo-neutrino detection (EARTH collaboration).
Tertiary physics education comprising:
(a) Curriculum design and evaluation; (b) Role of language; (c) Understanding of measurement and
uncertainty; (d) Modelling and visualization.
The opportunities that the Square Kilometre Array might provide the department are also recognised. The
independent Department of Astronomy are neighbours in the RW James Building.
Research funding may be applied for from university sources and from the National Research Foundation
(NRF) of South Africa. Academics are strongly encouraged to apply for an NRF research rating which
provides automatic basic funding to be awarded. Funding is also available for ATLAS and ALICE researchers
through the SA-CERN programme. See http://www.sa-cern.ac.za/
Teaching
Undergraduate teaching
The department teaches Physics in a curriculum which leads to a major in Physics in the three year BSc
degree. There are large first year service courses where Physics is taught to engineering, medical and other
non-physics students. An average teaching load is around 90 lectures a year, ranging from first year courses
to honours level courses. In addition, usually one afternoon a week will be assigned to supervising
laboratory activities. All staff, both experimentalists and theorists, will be expected to supervise first year
laboratory classes, where graduate students act as the demonstrators and tutors. Usually the
experimentalists run the senior undergraduate laboratories.
Honours teaching and project supervision
Students may go on to take physics in the one year BSc (Honours) degree, which follows the 3 year BSc
degree. This course contains a research project which a student completes under supervision of a member
of the Physics staff. The level of the coursework in the Honours degree is similar to that in the first year in a
graduate school programme in Physics in the United States.
Post-graduate (MSc and PhD) supervision
Staff members are encouraged to supervise postgraduate students at both MSc and PhD level. The average
number of post grads per staff member is around four.
Administration
All academics share in some of the administrative load of the department, supported by a departmental
administrator and two senior secretaries. A set of portfolios has also been designed to provide academics
with opportunities to contribute positively to the operations of the department.

Leave
Academic members of staff are afforded opportunities of taking research leave of different types. It is
reasonably straightforward to travel overseas for extended periods (6 weeks or more) during the June/July
vacation. Annual leave is generally taken in January (summer).
See http://hr.uct.ac.za/service/academic/leave/apply/
Faculty of Science
The Faculty of Science enjoys a high national and international reputation for the quality of its teaching,
research and outreach programmes. It comprises thirteen departments: Archaeology, Astronomy, Botany,
Chemistry, Computer Science, Environmental and Geographical Science, Geological Sciences, Mathematics
and Applied Mathematics, Molecular and Cellular Biology, Oceanography, Physics, Statistical Sciences,
Zoology.
The first degree is a BSc (minimum time 3 years), for which students will need to choose at least two
majors. Some students choose to continue to a one year BSc(Honours) degree before potentially embarking
on an MSc (nominal time 2 years), followed by a PhD (nominal time 3 years). Masters programmes may be
by thesis only, or by coursework and thesis. Examination of the PhD degree is by dissertation only.
The BSc is characterised by its coherence, a good balance between breadth and depth, the development of
professional and other skills that are relevant in the labour market, and an interdisciplinary nature. In
addition, there are routes through the BSc for students whose schooling backgrounds may be characterised
as having significant educational disadvantage. The Faculty has an extensive service teaching obligation and
large numbers of students from the Faculties of Commerce, and Engineering and the Built Environment are
enrolled for courses in the Science Faculty. Smaller numbers of students from the Faculties of Health
Sciences and Humanities are also enrolled for courses in Science.
The Science Faculty has approximately 2 700 students. Some 25% of these are enrolled in Masters and
Doctoral programmes. Among all UCT students registered for the PhD degree, almost 30% are registered in
the Science Faculty. The Faculty has planned for slow and relatively small growth of its enrolments overall,
and for an increase in the proportion of postgraduate enrolments in the medium term to at least a third of
the total.
The student body is cosmopolitan, and is drawn from all regions in South Africa, from elsewhere in Africa,
and from other parts of the world.
The Faculty is well placed to contribute substantially to our institutional goal of becoming a research-led
university. It enjoys a high national and international reputation for the excellence of its research
programmes. Almost 75% of the approximately 160 full-time permanent academic staff in the Faculty have
current National Research Foundation ratings which is the highest of all South African university science
faculties. In addition, a high proportion of our academic staff enjoy considerable international recognition
for the quality of their research and scholarship, and almost 90% of all academic staff in the Science Faculty
hold PhD degrees. The average annual rate of publication in the peer-reviewed literature exceeds three per
staff member.
For more information email the Head of Department, Professor Andy Buffler (andy.buffler@uct.ac.za)