Orbyts has been featured in many publications, and our research projects have resulted in numerous publications! This is a compilation of the latest features and publications
Orbyts
News
Latest News
2026 Lawrence Bragg Medal and Prize: Orbyts
For outstanding work empowering girls and students from socioeconomically disadvantaged backgrounds in physics education through cutting-edge research partnerships, and supporting physics teachers with novel teaching materials.
Institute of Physics
Opening doors with outreach: using your physics skills to engage, inspire and break down barriers
Research-in-schools programmes are known to positively impact students, but what of their impact on researchers? Evidence from Orbyts suggests that they provide a powerful form of professional development for scientists and other professionals in STEM.
nature reviews - physics
40 by 40: Gender equity in engineering and technology education – a blueprint for action
As a member of the Gender Pathways collective, we're proud to support the launch of ‘40 by 40: Gender equity in engineering and technology education’. It calls for sustained government action to help more girls and young women access engineering and technology pathways.
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Only 26% of young people on these pathways by age 18 are women and girls. Yet the UK needs an estimated 240,000 people to join the engineering and technology workforce each year to 2030. We need to build a larger and more diverse future workforce.
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Written by EngineeringUK on behalf of the collective, the blueprint sets out practical, evidence-based recommendations to improve enrichment, work experience and careers guidance.
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EngineeringUK
Publications:
J. Pérez-González, S. Ma
Clearing the clouds. 2025. Astronomy & Geophysics 66 (3): 3.12-3.15. https://doi.org/10.1093/astrogeo/ataf018
Jorge Pérez-González, Sushuang Ma and Orbyts students explore whether clouds matter when it comes to observing the size of exoplanets
R. Warrilow, L. J. Preston, A. Coates, B. Andrews, S. Blunden, K. Carter, I. Collings, M. D. Paolo, E. Gilbert, E. Gravestock, O. Hagon, R. Kenny, D. Knorr, L. Pizzey, I. Ruse, H. Sedgwick, L. Sibelly, F. Williams, K. Williamson-White, and W. Dunn
Reconstructing in-channel processes from the Eberswalde Delta on Mars. Research Notes of the AAS, 8(12), 298. doi: 10.3847/2515-5172/ad9a6
"Studying ancient fluvial landforms on Mars is essential for understanding the planet's climate history and can provide valuable insights into the intensity and duration of liquid water activity. This research used an Earth-based model to constrain local estimates of fluvial activity at the Eberswalde crater delta on Mars and sharpen our understanding of the sedimentary record with novel grain size and sediment flux calculations at this site. Remote sensing methods were used to reconstruct in-channel processes and estimate the delta formation by sediment transported in intermittent flows over ∼71,500 yr. Such sustained hydrological activity may have once provided habitable conditions at Eberswalde."
A.Upadhyay, T. Furtenbacher, A. N. Perri, C. A. Bowesman, E. K. Conway, K. L. Chubb , A. Owens, C. P. Dobney, E. Bowen, D. Broner, V. Ciobanu, K. Gelborova, S. Livsey, D. Magbagbeola, M. Manjunatha, T. Mitchell, D. Morohunfola, E. Wijayakoon, S. Winter, J. Tennyson.
MARVEL analysis of high-resolution spectra of ozone (16O3). Journal of Quantitative Spectroscopy and Radiative Transfer, p.109399.
"Accurate rotation-vibration (ro-vibrational) energy levels of the main isotopologue of ozone (16 O 3) in its ground electronic X ̃ 1 A 1 state are determined by performing MARVEL (Measured Active Rotation Vibration Energy Levels) analysis on measured line positions from 29 sources of data published in scientific literature. A total of 50276 ro-vibrational transitions are considered yielding 13664 MARVEL energy levels of 16 O 3 with their associated uncertainties. The maximum values of the energy and rotational angular…"
M. K. Mooney, C. Forsyth, M. S. Marsh, L. Bradley, T. Finnigan, F. Forde, F. Garrigan, C. Mancini-Tuffier, T. Mancini-Tuffier, E. Roberts, P. Vessoni, J. Powell, S. Clark, C. J. Lao, A. Smith, D. R. Jackson, S. Bingham, M. Sharpe, T. Hughes, G. Chisham, S. Milan.
Evaluating Auroral Forecasts Against Satellite Observations Under Different Levels of Geomagnetic Activity (2024). In: Journal of Geophysical Research (Space Physics) 129.8, e2023JA031478. doi: 10.1029/2023JA031478.
"The aurora and associated high energy particles and currents pose a space weather hazard to communication networks and ground-based infrastructure. Forecasting the location of the auroral oval forms an integral component of daily space weather operations. We evaluate a version of the OVATION-Prime 2013 auroral forecast model that was implemented for operational use at the UK Met Office Space Weather Operations Cent...."
Statistical survey of pitch angle anisotropy of relativistic electrons in the outer radiation belt and its variation with solar wind/geomagnetic activity
S. Chakraborty, I.J. Rae, S. Killey, B. Ojha, C. E. J. Watt, C. Potts, E. Irving, G. Elliott, K. Johnson, N. Mohammed , T. Gupta, T. Slater, X. Liu, Y. Cheng
Statistical survey of pitch angle anisotropy of relativistic electrons in the outer radiation belt and its variation with solar wind/geomagnetic activity (2024). Frontiers in Astronomy and Space Sciences, 11, 1474503.
"In this study, we use 7 years (2012–2019) of pitch angle resolved electron flux measurements from Van Allen Probe-B spacecraft to study the variation of near-equatorial pitch angle distributions (PADs) of outer radiation belt (L ≥≥ 3) relativistic electrons (E ≥≥ 0.5 MeV) with different levels of geomagnetic activity."
Continuous-time quantum walks for MAX-CUT are hot
R. J. Banks, E. Haque, F. Nazef, F. Fethallah, F. Ruqaya, H. Ahsan, H. Vora, H. Tahir, I. Ahmad, I. Hewins, I. Shah, K. Baranwal, M. Arora, M. Asad, M. Khan, N. Hasan, N. Azad, S. Fedaiee, S. Majeed, S. Bhuyan, T. Tarannum, Y. Ali, D. E. Browne, and P. A. Warburton.
Continuous time quantum walks for MAX-CUT are hot (2023). arXiv:2306.10365
"By exploiting the link between time-independent Hamiltonians and thermalisation, heuristic predictions on the performance of continuous-time quantum walks for MAX-CUT are made. The resulting predictions depend on the number of triangles in the underlying MAX-CUT graph. We extend these results to the time-dependent setting with multi-stage quantum walks and Floquet systems. The approach followed here provides a novel way of understanding the role of unitary dynamics in tackling combinatorial optimisation problems with continuous-time quantum algorithms."
