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
Jäger B
(2013)
Electroweak W+W- jj prodution at NLO in QCD matched with parton shower in the POWHEG-BOX
in Journal of High Energy Physics
Brod J
(2013)
Constraints on CP-violating Higgs couplings to the third generation
in Journal of High Energy Physics
Aartsen M
(2013)
SEARCH FOR TIME-INDEPENDENT NEUTRINO EMISSION FROM ASTROPHYSICAL SOURCES WITH 3 yr OF IceCube DATA
in The Astrophysical Journal
Aartsen MG
(2013)
Search for dark matter annihilations in the sun with the 79-string IceCube detector.
in Physical review letters
Bobeth C
(2013)
New Physics in <span class="cmmi-10">G</span><sub><span class="cmr-7">12</span></sub><sup><span class="cmmi-7">s</span></sup> <span class="cmr-10">: (</span><span class="overline"><span class="cmmi-10">s</span></span><span class="cmmi-10">b</span><span class="cmr-10">)(</span><span class="overline">
in Acta Physica Polonica B
Haisch U
(2013)
On the importance of loop-induced spin-independent interactions for dark matter direct detection
in Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics
Haisch U
(2013)
MSSM: cornered and correlated
in Journal of High Energy Physics
Klaput M
(2013)
Heterotic Calabi-Yau compactifications with flux
in Journal of High Energy Physics
Abbasi R
(2013)
Lateral distribution of muons in IceCube cosmic ray events
in Physical Review D
Aartsen M
(2013)
PINGU Sensitivity to the Neutrino Mass Hierarchy
Abreu P
(2013)
Ultrahigh Energy Neutrinos at the Pierre Auger Observatory
in Advances in High Energy Physics
Aartsen MG
(2013)
Measurement of atmospheric neutrino oscillations with IceCube.
in Physical review letters
Crivellin A
(2014)
Dark matter direct detection constraints from gauge bosons loops
in Physical Review D
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
Gray J
(2014)
String-Math 2013
Aartsen M.G.
(2014)
Letter of Intent: The Precision IceCube Next Generation Upgrade (PINGU)
Aartsen M
(2014)
Observation of the cosmic-ray shadow of the Moon with IceCube
in Physical Review D
Fields B
(2014)
Big-Bang Nucleosynthesis
in Chin.Phys.
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
Banfi A
(2014)
Quark masses in Higgs production with a jet veto
in Journal of High Energy Physics
Gauld R
(2014)
An explicit Z '-boson explanation of the B ? K * µ + µ - anomaly
in Journal of High Energy Physics
Hunt P
(2014)
Reconstruction of the primordial power spectrum of curvature perturbations using multiple data sets
in Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics
Jäger B
(2014)
Electroweak ZZjj production in the Standard Model and beyond in the POWHEG-BOX V2
in Journal of High Energy Physics
Gorbahn M
(2014)
Searching for t ? c(u)h with dipole moments
in Journal of High Energy Physics
Aartsen M
(2014)
Search for neutrino-induced particle showers with IceCube-40
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
He Y
(2014)
Heterotic model building: 16 special manifolds
in Journal of High Energy Physics
Gauld R
(2014)
Minimal Z ' explanations of the B ? K * µ + µ - anomaly
in Physical Review D
Mertsch P
(2014)
AMS-02 data confront acceleration of cosmic ray secondaries in nearby sources
in Physical Review D
Olive K
(2014)
Review of Particle Physics
in Chinese Physics C
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
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
Buchbinder E
(2014)
A heterotic standard model with B - L symmetry and a stable proton
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
Karlberg A
(2014)
NNLOPS accurate Drell-Yan production
in Journal of High Energy Physics
Bobeth C
(2014)
On new physics in ?G d
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
Gray J
(2014)
Topological invariants and fibration structure of complete intersection Calabi-Yau four-folds
in Journal of High Energy Physics
Dimopoulos S
(2014)
Maximally natural supersymmetry.
in Physical review letters
Aartsen M
(2014)
Energy reconstruction methods in the IceCube neutrino telescope
in Journal of Instrumentation
Mertsch P
(2014)
A hadronic explanation of the lepton anomaly
in Journal of Physics: Conference Series
Aartsen M
(2014)
Search for non-relativistic magnetic monopoles with IceCube
in The European Physical Journal C
Liu H
(2014)
FINGERPRINTS OF GALACTIC LOOP I ON THE COSMIC MICROWAVE BACKGROUND
in The Astrophysical Journal
Fields B
(2014)
Big-Bang Nucleosynthesis
Aartsen M.G.
(2014)
IceCube-Gen2: A Vision for the Future of Neutrino Astronomy in Antarctica
Aartsen M
(2014)
Search for a diffuse flux of astrophysical muon neutrinos with the IceCube 59-string configuration
in Physical Review D
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
| 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 |