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
Duch M
(2019)
Gauge-independent approach to resonant dark matter annihilation
in Journal of High Energy Physics
Lloyd-Stubbs A
(2019)
KSVZ axion model with quasidegenerate minima: A unified model for dark matter and dark energy
in Physical Review D
Dimopoulos K
(2019)
Dark energy as a remnant of inflation and electroweak symmetry breaking
in Journal of High Energy Physics
Bezrukov F
(2018)
On the robustness of the primordial power spectrum in renormalized Higgs inflation
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
Kim J
(2018)
Clockwork Higgs portal model for freeze-in dark matter
in Physical Review D
Morley T
(2018)
Vacuum polarization on topological black holes
in Classical and Quantum Gravity
Dimopoulos K
(2018)
Is the Big Rip unreachable?
in Physics Letters B
Dasgupta M
(2018)
Logarithmic accuracy of parton showers: a fixed-order study
in Journal of High Energy Physics
Bezrukov F
(2018)
On the robustness of the primordial power spectrum in renormalized Higgs inflation
in Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle 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)
Carr B
(2018)
Primordial black hole formation during slow reheating after inflation
in Physical Review D
Martínez R
(2018)
Soft gluon evolution and non-global logarithms
in Journal of High Energy Physics
Branchina V
(2018)
Protecting the stability of the electroweak vacuum from Planck-scale gravitational effects
in Physical Review D
Karamitsos S
(2018)
Frame covariant nonminimal multifield inflation
in Nuclear Physics B
Ambrus V
(2018)
Analysis of scalar and fermion quantum field theory on anti-de Sitter spacetime
in International Journal of Modern Physics D
Dimopoulos K
(2018)
Instant preheating in quintessential inflation with a -attractors
in Physical Review D
Dimopoulos K
(2018)
Non-minimal gravitational reheating during kination
in Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics
Dimopoulos K
(2018)
Steep eternal inflation and the swampland
in Physical Review D
Darmé L
(2018)
Light dark Higgs boson in minimal sub-GeV dark matter scenarios
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)
Freeze-in dark matter from a sub-Higgs mass clockwork sector via the Higgs portal
in Physical Review D
Dasgupta M
(2018)
Top tagging: an analytical perspective
in Journal of High Energy Physics
Hou T
(2018)
CT14 intrinsic charm parton distribution functions from CTEQ-TEA global analysis
in Journal of High Energy Physics
Finn K
(2018)
Eisenhart lift for field theories
in Physical Review D
Arnaud Q
(2018)
First results from the NEWS-G direct dark matter search experiment at the LSM
in Astroparticle Physics
Karamitsos S
(2018)
Frame covariant nonminimal multifield inflation
in Nuclear Physics B
Dimopoulos K
(2018)
Loop inflection-point inflation
in Astroparticle Physics
Charnock T
(2017)
Planck data versus large scale structure: Methods to quantify discordance
in Physical Review D
Biswas T
(2017)
Consistent higher derivative gravitational theories with stable de Sitter and anti-de Sitter backgrounds
in Physical Review D
Djouadi A
(2017)
Enhanced rates for diphoton resonances in the MSSM
in Physics Letters B
Dolan S
(2017)
Spinning Black Holes May Grow Hair
in Physics
Bezrukov F
(2017)
Hiding an elephant: heavy sterile neutrino with large mixing angle does not contradict cosmology
in Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics
Kim J
(2017)
Chaotic initial conditions for nonminimally coupled inflation via a conformal factor with a zero
in Physical Review D
Dimopoulos K
(2017)
Initial conditions for inflation
in Astroparticle Physics
Balázs C
(2017)
Gravitational waves at aLIGO and vacuum stability with a scalar singlet extension of the standard model
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
Akcay S
(2017)
Spin-orbit precession for eccentric black hole binaries at first order in the mass ratio
in Classical and Quantum Gravity
Hou T
(2017)
CTEQ-TEA parton distribution functions and HERA Run I and II combined data
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
Dimopoulos K
(2017)
Thermal inflation with a thermal waterfall scalar field coupled to a light spectator scalar field
in Physical Review D
Bhupal Dev P
(2017)
Natural Alignment in the Two Higgs Doublet Model
in Journal of Physics: Conference Series
Pilaftsis A
(2017)
Exact RG invariance and symmetry improved 2PI effective potential
in Nuclear Physics B
Conroy A
(2017)
Defocusing of null rays in infinite derivative gravity
in Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics
Anderle D
(2017)
Fragmentation functions beyond fixed order accuracy
in Physical Review D
Anderle D
(2017)
Towards semi-inclusive deep inelastic scattering at next-to-next-to-leading order
in Physical Review D
Hollowood T
(2017)
Decoherence, discord, and the quantum master equation for cosmological perturbations
in Physical Review D
Choudhury A
(2017)
Muon g - 2 and related phenomenology in constrained vector-like extensions of the MSSM
in Journal of High Energy Physics
Dimopoulos K
(2017)
Quintessential inflation with a-attractors
in Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics
| 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 |