Particle Physics: From the Early Universe to the Large Hadron Collider
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Manchester
Department Name: Physics and Astronomy
Abstract
Particle physics is all about understanding the elementary building blocks of nature and their interactions. Over the years, physicists have developed the Standard Model of particle physics, which is extremely successful in describing a very wide range of natural phenomena from things as basic as how light works and why atoms form through to the complicated workings inside stars and the synthesis of nuclei in the first few minutes after the Big Bang. However, we know that the Standard Model is not the whole story for it leaves many questions unanswered. Our proposal focuses on these unanswered questions and the way that scientists hope to address them in the coming years using experiments like the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) or observations like those that will be made using the Planck satellite. At the LHC, physicists are searching for the Higgs boson, which represents our current best guess as to what is responsible for the origin of mass. They are also searching for a whole host of new particles such as those predicted by supersymmetry. If supersymmetry is discovered then it offers the hope also to explain the origin of the Dark Matter that makes up a large fraction of the material that is known to exist in the Universe. The scientists in our consortium will explore the theory of supersymmetry and dark matter. We will use data from experiments like the LHC to identify which of the many possible variants of supersymmetry are allowed by the data and to suggest new ways to explore those models in experiments. Any 'new physics' produced at the LHC will be produced as a result of smashing two protons into each other and that means they will be produced in a complicated environment, probably in association with 'jets' of other particles. Members of our consortium will explore how we can make use of these jets to learn more about the associated new physics: the better we understand the environment in which new physics occurs, the more we are able to learn about the new physics itself. This is a complicated business that often necessitates computer simulations of particle collisions. Our members are experts in these simulations and have plans on how the make them more accurate, which is necessary if we are to make the most of the exciting data from the LHC. The Standard Model of particle physics is also deficient when it comes to explaining the early history of the Universe, when it was hot and dense. The evidence is now very strong that the history began with an era of accelerating expansion, called inflation. We are experts on inflation and its consequences. Inflation makes the Universe featureless, except for quantum fluctuations which somehow grow, causing the density of matter and energy in the Universe to vary with position. These initially small variations grow to become observable effects. One effect is the formation of the billions of galaxies that populate the night sky. Another effect is to leave a tiny imprint on the cosmic microwave background radiation (CMB), a faint hum of microwave radiation in which the earth is bathed. The CMB will be studied in exquisite detail by the Planck satellite, which was launched in 2009. We hope to be at the forefront of interpreting the Planck data in the hope of pinning down which of the various theories of the early universe are ruled out and which remain viable. The deficiencies of the Standard Model extend still further for it does not explain the amount nor even the existence of ordinary matter. Our scientists will use this to constrain possible physics beyond the Standard Model and to do that they need to master the dynamics of the Universe shortly after the end of inflation. Last but not least, we hope to understand better the mysterious 'Dark Energy' that drives the current and future acceleration of the Universe: perhaps it is because Einstein's theory of gravity is not quite right and that is something we will explore.
Organisations
Publications
Pilaftsis A
(2015)
Symmetry Improved 2PI Effective Action and the Infrared Divergences of the Standard Model
in Journal of Physics: Conference Series
Pilaftsis A
(2012)
On the classification of accidental symmetries of the two Higgs doublet model potential
in Physics Letters B
Pilaftsis A
(2015)
Mass bounds on light and heavy neutrinos from radiative minimal-flavor-violation leptogenesis
in Physical Review D
Pilaftsis A
(2013)
Advances in Leptogenesis
in Journal of Physics: Conference Series
Pilaftsis A
(2012)
Anomalous Fermion Mass Generation at Three Loops
Pilaftsis A
(2016)
Diphoton signatures from heavy axion decays at the CERN Large Hadron Collider
in Physical Review D
Ponglertsakul S
(2016)
Solitons and hairy black holes in Einstein-non-Abelian-Proca theory in anti-de Sitter spacetime
in Physical Review D
Ponglertsakul S
(2017)
Black hole solutions in Einstein-charged scalar field theory
Ponglertsakul S
(2017)
Effect of scalar field mass on gravitating charged scalar solitons and black holes in a cavity
in Physics Letters B
Ponglertsakul S
(2016)
Stability of gravitating charged-scalar solitons in a cavity
in Physical Review D
Roszkowski L
(2013)
Gravitino dark matter with constraints from Higgs boson mass and sneutrino decays
in Journal of High Energy Physics
Roszkowski L
(2018)
WIMP dark matter candidates and searches-current status and future prospects.
in Reports on progress in physics. Physical Society (Great Britain)
Roszkowski L
(2014)
Neutralino and gravitino dark matter with low reheating temperature
in Journal of High Energy Physics
ROSZKOWSKI L
(2013)
BAYESIAN IMPLICATIONS OF COLLIDER AND SUSY DARK MATTER DIRECT AND INDIRECT SEARCHES
in Modern Physics Letters A
Roszkowski L
(2015)
Axino dark matter with low reheating temperature
in Journal of High Energy Physics
Roszkowski L
(2017)
Towards understanding thermal history of the Universe through direct and indirect detection of dark matter
in Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics
Roszkowski L
(2013)
Gravitino Dark Matter with Constraints from Higgs Boson Mass and Sneutrino Decays
in Acta Physica Polonica B
Roszkowski L
(2014)
What next for the CMSSM and the NUHM: improved prospects for superpartner and dark matter detection
in Journal of High Energy Physics
Roszkowski L
(2015)
Prospects for dark matter searches in the pMSSM
in Journal of High Energy Physics
Salvio A
(2015)
Classical and quantum initial conditions for Higgs inflation
in Physics Letters B
Salvio A
(2015)
Classical and Quantum Initial Conditions for Higgs Inflation
Salvio A
(2016)
Higgs stability and the 750 GeV diphoton excess
in Physics Letters B
Sanchez J
(2014)
Inflationary buildup of a vector field condensate and its cosmological consequences
in Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics
Sanidas S
(2013)
PROJECTED CONSTRAINTS ON THE COSMIC (SUPER)STRING TENSION WITH FUTURE GRAVITATIONAL WAVE DETECTION EXPERIMENTS
in The Astrophysical Journal
Seymour M
(2013)
Constraining MPI models using s eff and recent Tevatron and LHC Underlying Event data
in Journal of High Energy Physics
Seymour M
(2013)
Extracting sigma_effective from the LHCb double-charm measurement
Shepherd B
(2017)
Black holes with s u N $$ \mathfrak{s}\mathfrak{u}(N) $$ gauge field hair and superconducting horizons
in Journal of High Energy Physics
Shepherd B
(2016)
Dyons and dyonic black holes in su ( N ) Einstein-Yang-Mills theory in anti-de Sitter spacetime
in Physical Review D
Shepherd B
(2012)
Characterizing asymptotically anti-de Sitter black holes with abundant stable gauge field hair
in Classical and Quantum Gravity
Shipley J
(2016)
Binary black hole shadows, chaotic scattering and the Cantor set
in Classical and Quantum Gravity
Talaganis S
(2016)
High-energy scatterings in infinite-derivative field theory and ghost-free gravity
in Classical and Quantum Gravity
Talaganis S
(2015)
Towards understanding the ultraviolet behavior of quantum loops in infinite-derivative theories of gravity
in Classical and Quantum Gravity
Teimouri A
(2016)
Generalised boundary terms for higher derivative theories of gravity
in Journal of High Energy Physics
Van De Bruck C
(2015)
Stabilizing the Planck mass shortly after inflation
in Physical Review D
Van De Bruck C
(2013)
Constraints on nonconformal couplings from the properties of the cosmic microwave background radiation.
in Physical review letters
Van De Bruck C
(2017)
Testing coupled dark energy models with their cosmological background evolution
in Physical Review D
Van De Bruck C
(2013)
Modified gravity and the radiation dominated epoch
in Physical Review D
Van De Bruck C
(2015)
Simplest extension of Starobinsky inflation
in Physical Review D
Van De Bruck C
(2017)
Reheating and preheating in the simplest extension of Starobinsky inflation
in International Journal of Modern Physics D
Van De Bruck C
(2012)
Modified Gravity and the Radiation Dominated Epoch
Van De Bruck C
(2018)
Searching for dark matter-dark energy interactions: Going beyond the conformal case
in Physical Review D
Van De Bruck C
(2013)
Nonadiabatic pressure perturbation and noncanonical kinetic terms in multifield inflation
in Physical Review D
Van De Bruck C
(2016)
Higgs inflation with a Gauss-Bonnet term in the Jordan frame
in Physical Review D
Van De Bruck C
(2016)
Reheating in Gauss-Bonnet-coupled inflation
in Physical Review D
Van De Bruck C
(2016)
Running of the running and entropy perturbations during inflation
in Physical Review D
Description | Progress on many fronts towards a better understanding of the universe, by developing theoretical models constrained by data from the LHC and cosmology experiments such as Planck. |
Exploitation Route | By continued research. |
Sectors | Education |
Description | Researchers supported by this award have been very active in outreach activities for the general public, schools and scientists from other fields. |
First Year Of Impact | 2014 |
Sector | Education |
Impact Types | Cultural,Societal |