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
Dolan S
(2015)
Stability of black holes in Einstein-charged scalar field theory in a cavity
in Physical Review D
Mazumdar A
(2013)
Creating perturbations from a decaying field during inflation
in Physical Review D
Pilaftsis A
(2016)
Diphoton signatures from heavy axion decays at the CERN Large Hadron Collider
in Physical Review D
Biswas T
(2013)
Phase transitions during cyclic inflation and non-Gaussianity
in Physical Review D
Shepherd B
(2016)
Dyons and dyonic black holes in su ( N ) Einstein-Yang-Mills theory in anti-de Sitter spacetime
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
Bezrukov F
(2013)
Higgs-dilaton cosmology: An effective field theory approach
in Physical Review D
Chen C
(2015)
Two-component flux explanation for the high energy neutrino events at IceCube
in Physical Review D
Chialva D
(2013)
Multiple dark matter scenarios from ubiquitous stringy throats
in Physical Review D
Branchina V
(2018)
Protecting the stability of the electroweak vacuum from Planck-scale gravitational effects
in Physical Review D
Van De Bruck C
(2015)
Simplest extension of Starobinsky inflation
in Physical Review D
Dev P
(2015)
TeV scale model for baryon and lepton number violation and resonant baryogenesis
in Physical Review D
Dolan S
(2016)
Stable photon orbits in stationary axisymmetric electrovacuum spacetimes
in Physical Review D
Crispino L
(2015)
Scattering from charged black holes and supergravity
in Physical Review D
Mazumdar A
(2014)
Dynamical breaking of shift symmetry in supergravity-based inflation
in Physical Review D
Dimopoulos K
(2018)
Instant preheating in quintessential inflation with a -attractors
in Physical Review D
Dimopoulos K
(2018)
Steep eternal inflation and the swampland
in Physical Review D
Edholm J
(2016)
Behavior of the Newtonian potential for ghost-free gravity and singularity free gravity
in Physical Review D
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
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
(2012)
Hybrid curvaton
in Physical Review D
Hollowood T
(2017)
Decoherence, discord, and the quantum master equation for cosmological perturbations
in Physical Review D
Macedo C
(2013)
Absorption of planar massless scalar waves by Kerr black holes
in Physical Review D
Dickinson R
(2016)
Probabilities and signalling in quantum field theory
in Physical Review D
Conroy A
(2015)
Nonlocal gravity in D dimensions: Propagators, entropy, and a bouncing cosmology
in Physical Review D
Chen C
(2014)
Standard model explanation of the ultrahigh energy neutrino events at IceCube
in Physical Review D
Casals M
(2013)
Self-force and Green function in Schwarzschild spacetime via quasinormal modes and branch cut
in Physical Review D
Kowalska K
(2013)
Constrained next-to-minimal supersymmetric standard model with a 126 GeV Higgs boson: A global analysis
in Physical Review D
Bezrukov F
(2016)
Applicability of approximations used in calculations of the spectrum of dark matter particles produced in particle decays
in Physical Review D
Kim J
(2017)
Inflaton condensate fragmentation: Analytical conditions and application to a -attractor models
in Physical Review D
Dolan S
(2014)
Gravitational self-torque and spin precession in compact binaries
in Physical Review D
Brax P
(2014)
Early modified gravity: Implications for cosmology
in Physical Review D
Ambrus V
(2016)
Rotating fermions inside a cylindrical boundary
in Physical Review D
Awasthi R
(2016)
Implications of the diboson excess for neutrinoless double beta decay and lepton flavor violation in TeV scale left-right symmetric model
in Physical Review D
Dev P
(2014)
Leptogenesis constraints on the mass of right-handed gauge bosons
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
Van De Bruck C
(2016)
Running of the running and entropy perturbations during inflation
in Physical Review D
Feng W
(2013)
Baryogenesis from dark matter
in Physical Review D
Conroy A
(2014)
Geodesic completeness and homogeneity condition for cosmic inflation
in Physical Review D
Van De Bruck C
(2017)
Testing coupled dark energy models with their cosmological background evolution
in Physical Review D
Dolan S
(2013)
Scattering by a draining bathtub vortex
in Physical Review D
Dev P
(2014)
Neutrino mass and dark matter in light of recent AMS-02 results
in Physical Review D
Finn K
(2018)
Eisenhart lift for field theories
in Physical Review D
Battye R
(2013)
Classically isospinning Hopf solitons
in Physical Review D
Fowlie A
(2013)
Dark matter and collider signatures of the MSSM
in Physical Review D
Pilaftsis A
(2015)
Mass bounds on light and heavy neutrinos from radiative minimal-flavor-violation leptogenesis
in Physical Review D
Battye R
(2014)
Classically isospinning Skyrmion solutions
in Physical Review D
Van De Bruck C
(2016)
Reheating in Gauss-Bonnet-coupled inflation
in Physical Review D
Munir S
(2013)
Simultaneous enhancement in ? ? , b b ¯ and t + t - rates in the NMSSM with nearly degenerate scalar and pseudoscalar Higgs bosons
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 |