Theoretical Particle Physics Research
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Oxford
Department Name: Oxford Physics
Abstract
Our overall aim is to elucidate the nature of matter and its fundamental interactions via a variety of phenomenological and theoretical studies. Of crucial importance will be the new results coming from the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN. The proposed research will improve our ability to predict the effects of the strong interactions (QCD) on the processes that will be studied at the LHC and develop efficient methods to determine the properties of any new states of matter discovered there. Both analytical and numerical methods will be used to study the properties of hadrons, strongly interacting bound states of quarks. Our research will seek to determine what lies beyond the Standard Model of the strong, weak and electromagnetic interactions, with the ultimate goal of providing a fully unified theory, including gravity. The most promising candidate theories will be studied, including Grand and superstring unification and theories with additional space dimensions. Laboratory, astrophysical and cosmological implications will be analysed to determine the most sensitive experimental tests of these theories. We hope these studies will lead to a complete understanding of the origin of mass, including an understanding of the quark, charged lepton and neutrino masses, mixing angles and CP violation, as well as of the nature of dark matter. In addition to having direct relevance to the LHC program, our research will have relevance to present and future neutrino and astroparticle experiments and to astrophysical and cosmological studies. In particular a concerted effort will be made to understand the nature of the dark matter and optimise strategies for detecting both direct and indirect signals. The implications of particle physics models for early universe processed such as inflation will also be studied.
Publications
Gray J
(2013)
All complete intersection Calabi-Yau four-folds
in Journal of High Energy Physics
Hamilton K
(2013)
Merging H/W/Z + 0 and 1 jet at NLO with no merging scale: a path to parton shower + NNLO matching
in Journal of High Energy Physics
Haisch U
(2013)
QCD effects in mono-jet searches for dark matter
in Journal of High Energy Physics
Acharya B
(2013)
Introducing the CTA concept
in Astroparticle Physics
Aartsen MG
(2013)
First observation of PeV-energy neutrinos with IceCube.
in Physical review letters
Aartsen M
(2013)
Search for Galactic PeV gamma rays with the IceCube Neutrino Observatory
in Physical Review D
Mertsch P
(2013)
Loops and spurs: the angular power spectrum of the Galactic synchrotron background
in Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics
Aartsen M
(2013)
The IceCube Neutrino Observatory Part III: Cosmic Rays
Abbasi R
(2013)
Search for relativistic magnetic monopoles with IceCube
in Physical Review D
Aartsen M
(2014)
Multimessenger search for sources of gravitational waves and high-energy neutrinos: Initial results for LIGO-Virgo and IceCube
in Physical Review D
Mertsch P
(2014)
AMS-02 data confront acceleration of cosmic ray secondaries in nearby sources
in Physical Review D
Aartsen M
(2014)
SEARCHES FOR EXTENDED AND POINT-LIKE NEUTRINO SOURCES WITH FOUR YEARS OF ICECUBE DATA
in The Astrophysical Journal
Mertsch P
(2014)
A hadronic explanation of the lepton anomaly
in Journal of Physics: Conference Series
Gauld R
(2014)
An explicit Z '-boson explanation of the B ? K * µ + µ - anomaly
in Journal of High Energy Physics
Nason P
(2014)
$$W^+W^-$$ W + W - , $$WZ$$ W Z and $$ZZ$$ Z Z production in the POWHEG-BOX-V2
in The European Physical Journal C
Bobeth C
(2014)
On new physics in ?G d
in Journal of High Energy Physics
Crivellin A
(2014)
Dark matter direct detection constraints from gauge bosons loops
in Physical Review D
Karlberg A
(2014)
NNLOPS accurate Drell-Yan production
in Journal of High Energy Physics
Haisch U
(2014)
Determining the structure of dark-matter couplings at the LHC
in Physical Review D
Kahlhoefer F
(2014)
Colliding clusters and dark matter self-interactions
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Gauld R
(2014)
Minimal Z ' explanations of the B ? K * µ + µ - anomaly
in Physical Review D
Aartsen M
(2014)
Search for non-relativistic magnetic monopoles with IceCube
in The European Physical Journal C
Hunt P
(2014)
Reconstruction of the primordial power spectrum of curvature perturbations using multiple data sets
in Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics
Aartsen M
(2014)
Search for neutrino-induced particle showers with IceCube-40
in Physical Review D
Aartsen M
(2014)
Search for a diffuse flux of astrophysical muon neutrinos with the IceCube 59-string configuration
in Physical Review D
Aartsen M
(2014)
Observation of the cosmic-ray shadow of the Moon with IceCube
in Physical Review D
Gorbahn M
(2014)
Searching for t ? c(u)h with dipole moments
in Journal of High Energy Physics
Ambjørn J
(2014)
A restricted dimer model on a two-dimensional random causal triangulation
in Journal of Physics A: Mathematical and Theoretical
Olive K
(2014)
Review of Particle Physics
in Chinese Physics C
He Y
(2014)
Heterotic model building: 16 special manifolds
in Journal of High Energy Physics
Buchbinder E
(2014)
The moduli space of heterotic line bundle models: a case study for the tetra-quadric
in Journal of High Energy Physics
Aartsen MG
(2014)
Observation of high-energy astrophysical neutrinos in three years of IceCube data.
in Physical review letters
Fields B
(2014)
Big-Bang Nucleosynthesis
Fields B
(2014)
Big-Bang Nucleosynthesis
in Chin.Phys.
Buchbinder E
(2014)
A heterotic standard model with B - L symmetry and a stable proton
in Journal of High Energy Physics
Liu H
(2014)
FINGERPRINTS OF GALACTIC LOOP I ON THE COSMIC MICROWAVE BACKGROUND
in The Astrophysical Journal
Aartsen M
(2014)
Energy reconstruction methods in the IceCube neutrino telescope
in Journal of Instrumentation
Gray J
(2014)
String-Math 2013
Jäger B
(2014)
Electroweak ZZjj production in the Standard Model and beyond in the POWHEG-BOX V2
in Journal of High Energy Physics
Banfi A
(2014)
Quark masses in Higgs production with a jet veto
in Journal of High Energy Physics
Dimopoulos S
(2014)
Maximally natural supersymmetry.
in Physical review letters
Aartsen M
(2014)
Improvement in fast particle track reconstruction with robust statistics
in Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section A: Accelerators, Spectrometers, Detectors and Associated Equipment
Alioli S
(2014)
Update of the Binoth Les Houches Accord for a standard interface between Monte Carlo tools and one-loop programs
in Computer Physics Communications
Gray J
(2014)
Topological invariants and fibration structure of complete intersection Calabi-Yau four-folds
in Journal of High Energy Physics
Hunt P
(2015)
Search for features in the spectrum of primordial perturbations using Planck and other datasets
in Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics
Aartsen M
(2015)
Measurement of the Atmospheric ? e Spectrum with IceCube
in Physical Review D
Aartsen M
(2015)
The IceProd framework: Distributed data processing for the IceCube neutrino observatory
in Journal of Parallel and Distributed Computing
| Description | Our overall aim is to elucidate the nature of matter and its fundamental interactions via a variety of phenomenological and theoretical studies. It was anticipated in the proposal that new results coming from the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN would be of crucial importance and the proposed research was intended to improve our ability to predict the effects of the strong interactions (QCD) on the processes that will be studied at the LHC and develop efficient methods to determine the properties of any new states of matter discovered there. This expectation was more than adequately fulfilled with the discovery of the Higgs boson - responsible for giving mass to all known fundamental particles in the Standard Model of the strong, weak and electromagnetic interactions. Our research also seeks to determine what lies beyond the Standard Model, with the ultimate goal of providing a fully unified theory, including gravity. Experimental progress here has not been as dramatic, in fact the Standard Model has been amazingly successful at explaining all laboratory measurements. Nevertheless there must be new physics, if only to account for the observed universe with its asymmetry between matter and antimatter, preponderance of dark over luminous matter, and inhomogeneities which grow under gravity into the large-scale structure of galaxies, clusters and superclusters ... none of which can be explained in the framework of the Standard Model. We have continued to make progress in studying promising candidate theories, including unified theories and theories with additional space dimensions. |
| Exploitation Route | Our work forms part of a collective effort by theoretical physicists all over the world - each generation builds on the work of those who came before. |
| Sectors | Education |
| URL | http://www2.physics.ox.ac.uk/research/particle-theory |
| Description | An innovative website to explain `Why String Theory?' (http://whystringtheory.com/) has received over 100,000 unique visitors. |
| Sector | Education |
| Impact Types | Cultural |
| Description | Consolidated grant |
| Amount | £717,699 (GBP) |
| Funding ID | ST/P000770/1 |
| Organisation | Science and Technologies Facilities Council (STFC) |
| Sector | Public |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 10/2017 |
| End | 09/2020 |