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
Abreu P
(2012)
SEARCH FOR POINT-LIKE SOURCES OF ULTRA-HIGH ENERGY NEUTRINOS AT THE PIERRE AUGER OBSERVATORY AND IMPROVED LIMIT ON THE DIFFUSE FLUX OF TAU NEUTRINOS
in The Astrophysical Journal
Aartsen M
(2015)
SEARCH FOR PROMPT NEUTRINO EMISSION FROM GAMMA-RAY BURSTS WITH ICECUBE
in The Astrophysical Journal
Abbasi R
(2013)
Search for relativistic magnetic monopoles with IceCube
in Physical Review D
Abreu P
(2012)
Search for signatures of magnetically-induced alignment in the arrival directions measured by the Pierre Auger Observatory
in Astroparticle Physics
Aartsen M
(2016)
SEARCH FOR SOURCES OF HIGH-ENERGY NEUTRONS WITH FOUR YEARS OF DATA FROM THE ICETOP DETECTOR
in The Astrophysical Journal
Aartsen M
(2017)
Search for sterile neutrino mixing using three years of IceCube DeepCore data
in Physical Review D
Aartsen M
(2013)
SEARCH FOR TIME-INDEPENDENT NEUTRINO EMISSION FROM ASTROPHYSICAL SOURCES WITH 3 yr OF IceCube DATA
in The Astrophysical Journal
Abreu P
(2011)
Search for ultrahigh energy neutrinos in highly inclined events at the Pierre Auger Observatory
in Physical Review D
Abbasi R
(2012)
Search for ultrahigh-energy tau neutrinos with IceCube
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
Abbasi R
(2012)
SEARCHES FOR PERIODIC NEUTRINO EMISSION FROM BINARY SYSTEMS WITH 22 AND 40 STRINGS OF ICECUBE
in The Astrophysical Journal
Aartsen M
(2016)
Searches for relativistic magnetic monopoles in IceCube
in The European Physical Journal C
Aartsen M
(2015)
Searches for small-scale anisotropies from neutrino point sources with three years of IceCube data
in Astroparticle Physics
Aartsen MG
(2016)
Searches for Sterile Neutrinos with the IceCube Detector.
in Physical review letters
Aartsen M
(2015)
SEARCHES FOR TIME-DEPENDENT NEUTRINO SOURCES WITH ICECUBE DATA FROM 2008 TO 2012
in The Astrophysical Journal
Abbasi R
(2012)
Searching for soft relativistic jets in core-collapse supernovae with the IceCube optical follow-up program
in Astronomy & Astrophysics
Gorbahn M
(2014)
Searching for t ? c(u)h with dipole moments
in Journal of High Energy Physics
Mertsch P
(2012)
Second-order Fermi acceleration as the origin of the Fermi bubbles
in Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section A: Accelerators, Spectrometers, Detectors and Associated Equipment
Abdallah J
(2015)
Simplified models for dark matter searches at the LHC
in Physics of the Dark Universe
Bursa F
(2013)
SO(2N) and SU(N) gauge theories in 2 + 1 dimensions
in Journal of High Energy Physics
Giasemidis G
(2012)
Spectral dimension flow on continuum random multigraph
Gray J
(2014)
String-Math 2013
Abbasi R
(2011)
SWIFT Follow-Up of IceCube neutrino multiplets
Aartsen M
(2017)
THE CONTRIBUTION OF FERMI -2LAC BLAZARS TO DIFFUSE TEV-PEV NEUTRINO FLUX
in The Astrophysical Journal
Abbasi R
(2012)
The design and performance of IceCube DeepCore
in Astroparticle Physics
| 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 |