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
Dimopoulos K
(2017)
Thermal inflation with a thermal waterfall scalar field coupled to a light spectator scalar field
in Physical Review D
Hollowood T
(2017)
Decoherence, discord, and the quantum master equation for cosmological perturbations
in Physical Review D
Choudhury A
(2017)
Blind Spots for Direct Detection with Simplified DM Models and the LHC
in Universe
Dolan S
(2017)
Rainbow scattering in the gravitational field of a compact object
in Physical Review D
De Bruck C
(2017)
Non-Gaussianity in multi-sound-speed disformally coupled inflation
in Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics
Ambru? V
(2017)
Thermal expectation values of fermions on anti-de Sitter space-time
in Classical and Quantum Gravity
Dickinson R
(2017)
Fock-space projection operators for semi-inclusive final states
in Physics Letters B
Dolan S
(2017)
Spinning Black Holes May Grow Hair
in Physics
Dolan S
(2018)
Instability of the Proca field on Kerr spacetime
in Physical Review D
Belyaev A
(2018)
Problems with Higgsplosion
in Physical Review D
Daza Á
(2018)
Wada structures in a binary black hole system
in Physical Review D
Kim J
(2018)
Freeze-in dark matter from a sub-Higgs mass clockwork sector via the Higgs portal
in Physical Review D
Torres T
(2018)
Waves on a vortex: rays, rings and resonances
in Journal of Fluid Mechanics
Ambrus V
(2018)
Analysis of scalar and fermion quantum field theory on anti-de Sitter spacetime
in International Journal of Modern Physics D
Martínez R
(2018)
Soft gluon evolution and non-global logarithms
in Journal of High Energy Physics
Darmé L
(2018)
Flavor anomalies and dark matter in SUSY with an extra U(1)
in Journal of High Energy Physics
Kim J
(2018)
Clockwork Higgs portal model for freeze-in dark matter
in Physical Review D
Darmé L
(2018)
Light dark Higgs boson in minimal sub-GeV dark matter scenarios
in Journal of High Energy Physics
Dimopoulos K
(2018)
Steep eternal inflation and the swampland
in Physical Review D
Roszkowski L
(2018)
WIMP dark matter candidates and searches-current status and future prospects.
in Reports on progress in physics. Physical Society (Great Britain)
Arnaud Q
(2018)
First results from the NEWS-G direct dark matter search experiment at the LSM
in Astroparticle Physics
Finn K
(2018)
Eisenhart lift for field theories
in Physical Review D
Hou T
(2018)
CT14 intrinsic charm parton distribution functions from CTEQ-TEA global analysis
in Journal of High Energy Physics
Dolan S
(2018)
Geometrical optics for scalar, electromagnetic and gravitational waves on curved spacetime
in International Journal of Modern Physics D
Branchina V
(2018)
Protecting the stability of the electroweak vacuum from Planck-scale gravitational effects
in Physical Review D
Carr B
(2018)
Primordial black hole formation during slow reheating after inflation
in Physical Review D
Dimopoulos K
(2018)
Non-minimal gravitational reheating during kination
in Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics
Van De Bruck C
(2018)
Searching for dark matter-dark energy interactions: Going beyond the conformal case
in Physical Review D
Morley T
(2018)
Vacuum polarization on topological black holes
in Classical and Quantum Gravity
Dasgupta M
(2018)
Logarithmic accuracy of parton showers: a fixed-order study
in Journal of High Energy Physics
Leite L
(2018)
Absorption of electromagnetic plane waves by rotating black holes
in Physical Review D
Macedo C
(2018)
Spectral lines of extreme compact objects
in Physical Review D
Dimopoulos K
(2018)
Loop inflection-point inflation
in Astroparticle Physics
Dimopoulos K
(2018)
Instant preheating in quintessential inflation with a -attractors
in Physical Review D
Dimopoulos K
(2018)
Is the Big Rip unreachable?
in Physics Letters B
Dasgupta M
(2018)
Top tagging: an analytical perspective
in Journal of High Energy Physics
Hryczuk A
(2019)
Testing dark matter with Cherenkov light - prospects of H.E.S.S. and CTA for exploring minimal supersymmetry
in Journal of High Energy Physics
Finn K
(2019)
Finite measure for the initial conditions of inflation
in Physical Review D
Van De Bruck C
(2019)
Dark energy, the swampland, and the equivalence principle
in Physical Review D
Forshaw J
(2019)
Parton branching at amplitude level
in Journal of High Energy Physics
Maggio E
(2019)
Ergoregion instability of exotic compact objects: Electromagnetic and gravitational perturbations and the role of absorption
in Physical Review D
Stratton T
(2019)
Rainbow scattering of gravitational plane waves by a compact body
in Physical Review D
Dimopoulos K
(2019)
Quintessential inflation with a trap and axionic dark matter
in Physical Review D
Dimopoulos K
(2019)
Primordial black holes from thermal inflation
in Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics
Dolan S
(2019)
Electromagnetic fields on Kerr spacetime, Hertz potentials, and Lorenz gauge
in Physical Review D
Ariga A
(2019)
FASER's physics reach for long-lived particles
in Physical Review D
Mifsud J
(2019)
An interacting dark sector and the implications of the first gravitational-wave standard siren detection on current constraints
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Dimopoulos K
(2019)
Warm quintessential inflation
in Physics Letters B
Hanson E
(2019)
Charged Higgs bosons in naturally aligned two-Higgs-doublet models at the LHC
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 |