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
Forshaw J
(2021)
Coulomb gluons will generally destroy coherence
in Journal of High Energy Physics
Forshaw J
(2019)
Parton branching at amplitude level
in Journal of High Energy Physics
Choudhury A
(2016)
Less-simplified models of dark matter for direct detection and the LHC
in Journal of High Energy Physics
Roszkowski L
(2015)
Axino dark matter with low reheating temperature
in Journal of High Energy Physics
Kowalska K
(2014)
Low fine tuning in the MSSM with higgsino dark matter and unification constraints
in Journal of High Energy Physics
Biswas T
(2014)
Atick-Witten Hagedorn conjecture, near scale-invariant matter and blue-tilted gravity power spectrum
in Journal of High Energy Physics
Ángeles-Martínez R
(2015)
Coulomb gluons and the ordering variable
in Journal of High Energy Physics
Bewick G
(2020)
Logarithmic accuracy of angular-ordered parton showers
in Journal of High Energy Physics
Dasgupta M
(2021)
Investigating top tagging with Ym-Splitter and N-subjettiness
in Journal of High Energy Physics
Dev P
(2016)
Disambiguating seesaw models using invariant mass variables at hadron colliders
in Journal of High Energy Physics
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
Battye R
(2021)
Radio line properties of axion dark matter conversion in neutron stars
in Journal of High Energy Physics
Choudhury A
(2017)
Muon g - 2 and related phenomenology in constrained vector-like extensions of the MSSM
in Journal of High Energy Physics
Dasgupta M
(2016)
Improved jet substructure methods: Y-splitter and variants with grooming
in Journal of High Energy Physics
Bewick G
(2022)
Initial state radiation in the Herwig 7 angular-ordered parton shower
in Journal of High Energy Physics
Bhupal Dev P
(2014)
Maximally symmetric two Higgs doublet model with natural standard model alignment
in Journal of High Energy Physics
Kimura T
(2016)
Nonlocal N = 1 $$ \mathcal{N}=1 $$ supersymmetry
in Journal of High Energy Physics
Baxter J
(2016)
On the stability of soliton and hairy black hole solutions of ( N ) Einstein-Yang-Mills theory with a negative cosmological constant
in Journal of Mathematical Physics
Bomark N
(2016)
Detection prospects of light NMSSM Higgs pseudoscalar via cascades of heavier scalars from vector boson fusion and Higgs-strahlung
in Journal of Physics G: Nuclear and Particle Physics
Akiba K
(2016)
LHC forward physics
in Journal of Physics G: Nuclear and Particle Physics
Alimena J
(2020)
Searching for long-lived particles beyond the Standard Model at the Large Hadron Collider
in Journal of Physics G: Nuclear and Particle Physics
Dimopoulos K
(2021)
Jointly modelling Cosmic Inflation and Dark Energy
in Journal of Physics: Conference Series
Dickinson R
(2017)
Working directly with probabilities in quantum field theory
in Journal of Physics: Conference Series
Dev P
(2015)
TeV Scale Lepton Number Violation and Baryogenesis
in Journal of Physics: Conference Series
Bhupal Dev P
(2017)
Natural Alignment in the Two Higgs Doublet Model
in Journal of Physics: Conference Series
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 |