Henning U Flaecher

Henning U Flaecher is Professor of Physics at the University of Bristol, School of Physics. He earned a PhD from London and a Diploma from Heidelberg University. His research centres on the search for dark matter via collider experiments (CMS at CERN) and direct detection (LUX-ZEPLIN at SURF), with strong activity in particle physics, supersymmetry, and Higgs/lepton physics.

Education

• PhD (Lond.)
• Diploma (Heidelberg)

Research Interests

Professor Flaecher's work is driven by the quest to identify dark matter. He pursues this through two complementary avenues: high-energy proton–proton collisions recorded by the CMS detector at CERN, where new particles could manifest in missing-transverse-energy signatures, and ultra-low-background underground detectors such as LUX-ZEPLIN that attempt to observe dark-matter particles scattering off xenon nuclei.

Themes span Standard Model tests, Higgs boson properties, supersymmetric extensions, and lepton final states, all feeding into global fits of theoretical models constrained by experimental data.

Projects & Funding

At present, he leads or co-leads several UK Research Council grants, including:

• XLZD Pre-Construction (2024-2027)
• GridPP7 Bristol Tier-2 Hardware Tranche-1 (2024-2026)
• XLZD@Boulby – Xenon Futures R&D Phase 3 (2023-2024)

Supervision & Collaboration

He has supervised nine advanced student works and collaborates extensively across the CMS and LZ consortia, involving institutions world-wide.