The Lancaster, Manchester, Sheffield Consortium for Fundamental Physics: Particle Physics, From the Universe to the LHC
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.
The discovery at the LHC of a Higgs boson is a major milestone in our quest to understand the origin of mass. It is certainly not, however, the whole story. The LHC experiments are working hard to measure the properties of the particle they have discovered. They are also searching for new particles such as those predicted by supersymmetry. If supersymmetry is discovered then it offers the hope 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, a very complicated environment, usually 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 insufficient 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 tiny quantum fluctuations that cause 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 is to leave a tiny imprint on the cosmic microwave background radiation (CMB), a faint hum of microwave radiation in which the Universe is bathed. The CMB is being studied in exquisite detail by the Planck satellite, which was launched in 2009. We are 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: one possibility is that it is because Einstein's theory of gravity is not quite right and that is something we will explore.
The discovery at the LHC of a Higgs boson is a major milestone in our quest to understand the origin of mass. It is certainly not, however, the whole story. The LHC experiments are working hard to measure the properties of the particle they have discovered. They are also searching for new particles such as those predicted by supersymmetry. If supersymmetry is discovered then it offers the hope 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, a very complicated environment, usually 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 insufficient 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 tiny quantum fluctuations that cause 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 is to leave a tiny imprint on the cosmic microwave background radiation (CMB), a faint hum of microwave radiation in which the Universe is bathed. The CMB is being studied in exquisite detail by the Planck satellite, which was launched in 2009. We are 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: one possibility is that it is because Einstein's theory of gravity is not quite right and that is something we will explore.
Planned Impact
See the attached "Pathways to Impact" document for details.
This project has impact beyond the international scientific community mainly through the training of highly skilled graduate students and postdoctoral researchers and through extensive "outreach" activities of various kinds aimed at engaging directly with the general public, school children, teachers, policy makers and the media. Undergraduate teaching is also impacted beneficially by our research.
This project has impact beyond the international scientific community mainly through the training of highly skilled graduate students and postdoctoral researchers and through extensive "outreach" activities of various kinds aimed at engaging directly with the general public, school children, teachers, policy makers and the media. Undergraduate teaching is also impacted beneficially by our research.
Organisations
Publications
Dickinson R
(2017)
Working directly with probabilities in quantum field theory
in Journal of Physics: Conference Series
Roszkowski L
(2018)
WIMP dark matter candidates and searches-current status and future prospects.
in Reports on progress in physics. Physical Society (Great Britain)
Kahlhoefer F
(2015)
WIMP dark matter and unitarity-conserving inflation via a gauge singlet scalar
in Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics
Gryb S
(2021)
When scale is surplus
in Synthese
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
Torres T
(2018)
Waves on a vortex: rays, rings and resonances
in Journal of Fluid Mechanics
Dempsey D
(2016)
Waves and null congruences in a draining bathtub
in International Journal of Modern Physics D
Dempsey D
(2016)
Waves and null congruences in a draining bathtub
Dimopoulos K
(2019)
Warm Quintessential Inflation
Dimopoulos K
(2019)
Warm quintessential inflation
in Physics Letters B
McDonald J
(2016)
Warm dark matter via ultra-violet freeze-in: reheating temperature and non-thermal distribution for fermionic Higgs portal dark matter
in Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics
Conroy A
(2015)
Wald Entropy for Ghost-Free, Infinite Derivative Theories of Gravity.
in Physical review letters
Daza Á
(2018)
Wada structures in a binary black hole system
in Physical Review D
Ambrus V
(2021)
Vortical Effects for Free Fermions on Anti-De Sitter Space-Time
in Symmetry
Morley T
(2021)
Vacuum polarization on topological black holes with Robin boundary conditions
in Physical Review D
Morley T
(2018)
Vacuum polarization on topological black holes
in Classical and Quantum Gravity
Breen C
(2015)
Vacuum polarization on the brane
in Physical Review D
Breen C
(2015)
Vacuum polarization on the brane
Abel P
(2016)
Vacuum for a massless quantum scalar field outside a collapsing shell in anti-de Sitter space-time
in General Relativity and Gravitation
Van De Bruck C
(2016)
Vacuum Cherenkov radiation and bremsstrahlung from disformal couplings
Van De Bruck C
(2016)
Vacuum Cherenkov radiation and bremsstrahlung from disformal couplings
in Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics
Anderle D
(2017)
Using hadron-in-jet data in a global analysis of D * fragmentation functions
in Physical Review D
Dev PS
(2015)
Unified Explanation of the eejj, Diboson, and Dijet Resonances at the LHC.
in Physical review letters
Dimopoulos K
(2017)
Ultra slow-roll inflation demystified
in Physics Letters B
Dimopoulos K
(2017)
Ultra slow-roll inflation demystified
Chen C
(2015)
Two-component flux explanation for the high energy neutrino events at IceCube
in Physical Review D
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
Talaganis S
(2015)
Towards understanding the ultraviolet behavior of quantum loops in infinite-derivative theories of gravity
in Classical and Quantum Gravity
Anderle D
(2017)
Towards semi-inclusive deep inelastic scattering at next-to-next-to-leading order
in Physical Review D
Battye R
(2022)
Towards robust constraints on axion dark matter using PSR J1745-2900
in Physical Review D
Baxter J
(2016)
Topological black holes in su ( N ) Einstein-Yang-Mills theory with a negative cosmological constant
in Physics Letters B
Dasgupta M
(2018)
Top tagging: an analytical perspective
in Journal of High Energy Physics
Dolan S
(2015)
Tidal invariants for compact binaries on quasicircular orbits
in Physical Review D
Dimopoulos K
(2017)
Thermal inflation with a thermal waterfall scalar field coupled to a light spectator scalar field
in Physical Review D
Ambru? V
(2017)
Thermal expectation values of fermions on anti-de Sitter space-time
in Classical and Quantum Gravity
De Bruck C
(2015)
The variation of the fine-structure constant from disformal couplings
in Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics
Van De Bruck C
(2015)
The variation of the fine-structure constant from disformal couplings
Dulat S
(2016)
The structure of the proton: The CT14 QCD global analysis
in EPJ Web of Conferences
Van De Bruck C
(2015)
The simplest extension of Starobinsky inflation
Choudhury A
(2016)
The role of leptonic cascades in $B_c \to B_s$ at the LHC
Dayal P
(2015)
THE QUEST FOR CRADLES OF LIFE: USING THE FUNDAMENTAL METALLICITY RELATION TO HUNT FOR THE MOST HABITABLE TYPE OF GALAXY
in The Astrophysical Journal
Lyth D
(2016)
The History of the Universe
Kent C
(2015)
The global rotating scalar field vacuum on anti-de Sitter space-time
in Physics Letters B
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 |