Nikhef is the national institute for subatomic physics in the Netherlands. At Nikhef, approximately 220 physicists and 80 technical staff work together in an open and international scientific environment. Together they perform theoretical and experimental research in the fields of particle and astroparticle physics. Nikhef is a partnership between six major Dutch universities and the NWO-I Foundation, the Institutes Organization of the Dutch Research Council (NWO).
Nikhef participates in a wide range of research collaborations, including the ALICE, ATLAS and LHCb experiments at CERN, the KM3NeT neutrino telescope in the Mediterranean, the Virgo gravitational waves interferometer in Pisa, the Xenon-nT dark matter experiment in Gran Sasso, the Pierre Auger cosmic ray observatory in Argentina, and the eEDM research programme in Groningen. Nikhef furthermore has scientific groups on theoretical particle physics, physics data processing, and detector R&D, and has excellently equipped technical departments in mechanics, electronics, and computing. Nikhef hosts a LHC Tier-1 data processing center and offers substantial additional computing resources for end-user data analysis and simulation.
The group
The Nikhef Theory group in Amsterdam is currently composed of 7 staff members, 8 postdocs and 12 PhD students. The group has a strong expertise in effective field theories, higher-order calculations in quantum chromodynamics, event generators, machine learning in particle physics, proton structure determinations, high-energy neutrino scattering, flavour physics, beyond the standard model physics, and cosmology, among other topics. The group also has strong connections with other national and international groups in theoretical high energy physics, as well as frequent interactions with the experimental groups at Nikhef.
Job summary
For more than fifteen years the intense flux of high-energy neutrinos produced in the forward direction at the LHC went undetected, until their observation in 2023 by the FASER and SND@LHC experiments opened a new “collider neutrino” era, providing access to the highest-energy neutrinos ever produced in a laboratory.
The ERC Advanced Grant UNICORN project (“Unlocking the Strong Interactions with Collider Neutrinos”) will build the theoretical framework needed to model the production and scattering of these neutrinos, combining state-of-the-art QCD calculations, Monte Carlo simulations, and machine learning, and will apply it to the full FASER and SND@LHC Run 3 datasets while laying the groundwork for a thriving LHC neutrino program at the High-Luminosity LHC. The goal is to transform FASER and SND@LHC into precision microscopes of proton structure, enabling in turn precision predictions for Higgs and electroweak physics and searches for New Physics LHC and enhanced interpretations of high-energy neutrino telescope observations.
The PhD and postdoc positions will be embedded in the Nikhef Theory group and supervised by Prof. Dr. Juan Rojo. The research program to be carried out addresses several interconnected directions: a data-driven extraction of the LHC forward neutrino fluxes; charm production at the LHC as high-resolution probes of small-x QCD; neutrino and muon deep-inelastic scattering structure functions at TeV energies and their inclusion in the NNPDF global analysis of proton structure; and the development of state-of-the-art event generators for neutrino and muon DIS with data-driven tunes and their integration with Neural Simulation-Based Inference techniques to extract optimally sensitive, unbinned observables from FASER data. The successful candidates will work closely with the other members of the team and join the FASER collaboration, including through working visits to CERN.
Our research community is friendly and supportive. Nikhef is committed to being an inclusive and diverse organisation. Applications from women and people belonging to minority and underrepresented groups are especially welcomed.
The succesful applicants will be employed by the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the VU Amsterdam. The employement conditions are the following:
- for the PhD position, a salary of € 3.059,00 gross per month in the first year, rising to a maximum of € 3.881,00 gross per month in the fourth year, for a full-time employment;
- for the postdoctoral position, a salary in scale 10 of the UNL collective labour agreement, between € 3.546,00 and € 4.075,00 gross per month, for a full-time employment;
- for the PhD position, an employment contract of initially 1 year which upon succesful evaluation will be extended to a total of 4 years;
- for the postdoctoral position, an employment contract of 2 years, with the possibility of an extension to a third year.
The VU Amsterdam also offers you attractive fringe benefits and arrangements. Some examples:
- a full-time 38-hour working week comes with a holiday leave entitlement of 232 hours per year. If you choose to work 40 hours, you have 96 extra holiday leave hours on an annual basis. For part-timers, this is calculated pro rata;
- 8% holiday allowance and 8.3% end-of-year bonus;
- solid pension scheme (ABP);
- contribution to commuting expenses;
- optional model for designing a personalized benefits package.
Requirements
Excellent software and programming skills, in particular in Python, as well as prior expertise in the topics relevant for these positions, are especially encouraged. Applicants to the PhD position should have an MSc degree in theoretical or particle physics (or a closely related topic) by the time they start their appointment, or shortly thereafter. Applicants to the postdoctoral position should hold, or expect to obtain before the starting date, a PhD in theoretical or particle physics (or a closely related topic).
Further information and application
Qualified applicants are encouraged to apply by clicking the 'apply now' button below. Please be prepared to upload a curriculum vitae and a motivation letter and have the email addresses of at least two referents ready (three for the postdoctoral position), who are willing to send a letter of recommendation on your behalf. Only reference letters for short-listed candidates will be requested.
There is no fixed application deadline: the review of applications will begin on 15 July 2026 and will continue until the positions are filled. The intended starting date is 1 January 2027 or shortly thereafter, to be set by mutual agreement. For further information about these vacancies, feel free to contact Prof. Dr. Juan Rojo ([email protected]).
All qualified individuals are encouraged to apply
