Particle Theory at the Tait Institute
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Edinburgh
Department Name: Sch of Physics and Astronomy
Abstract
There are two types of fundamental forces in Nature: Those responsible for particle interactions at subatomic scales and those responsible for the large scale structure of the universe. The former is described by Quantum Field Theories (QFT) such as the Standard Model. Currently, our understanding of Nature at the most fundamental level is at the crossroads. Last year, the LHC at CERN collided protons at higher energies than ever before, and this year there should be sufficient collisions to begin to explore physics at the TeV scale. Nobody yet knows what these data will reveal. However, there are very good reasons to believe that something fundamentally new will eventually be discovered, which might transform our understanding of basic physics, making the next few years the most exciting time for a generation or more. The discoveries could be new types of particle, such as the Higgs boson, new kinds of symmetries such as supersymmetry, or indeed something even more dramatic such as extra dimensions or mini black holes. Our rolling programme of research in Particle Physics Theory is designed to be at the forefront of these new discoveries: indeed Peter Higgs himself is Emeritus Professor here. Specifically, we provide theoretical calculations, using pen and paper, and the most powerful supercomputers, of both the huge number of background processes to be seen at LHC due to known physics, and the tiny signals expected in various models of new physics, in order to discriminate between signal and background, and thus maximise the discovery potential of the LHC. In parallel, we will attempt to understand the more complete picture of all the forces of Nature that may begin to emerge. The fundamental force responsible for large scale structure is described Einstein's General Theory of Relativity (GR). During the last three decades, string theory has emerged as a conceptually rich theoretical framework reconciling both GR and QFT. The low-energy limit of String Theory is supergravity (SUGRA), a nontrivial extension of GR in which the universe is described by a spacetime with additional geometric data. Members of the group have pioneered approaches to deriving observable cosmological consequences of String Theory, to studying how the geometrical notions on which GR is predicated change at very small ('stringy') distance scales, and the systematic classification of SUGRA backgrounds. The group is also engaged in using these theories to improve calculations in existing field theories. In summary, our research will impinge on both theoretical and computational aspects relevant to probing the phenomenology of incoming LHC data, and will also encompass a wide range of topics in QFT and gravitational aspects of String Theory, impinging on cosmology, particle physics and on the very nature of String Theory itself.
Planned Impact
The Institute is involved in outreach activities such as talks at secondary schools and University Open Day events and for organizations such as the IOP. These activities will continue with plans for increase through greater personal initiative by Institute members as well as through cooperation with organizations including the University and Particle Physics 4 Scottish Schools. Institute members also have had interaction with the popular science press through offering expertise opinions for articles, having our own work covered, and being involved in press releases by the University, STFC and IBM. We have a unique task of developing and supporting public interest in the work of our retired Institute member and Professor Emeritus Peter Higgs. We receive information almost on a daily basis of press coverage of him or the Higgs boson by media organizations all over the world. We also host media and television organizations who interview Peter Higgs.We keep a compilation of this media coverage, with more than 1000 media citations since 2008. We will continue this support activity, which will be most essential in the coming years, with anticipation of the discovery of the Higgs Boson at the LHC. We have continued to impact the high performance computing industry and consequently all of scientific computing in a quite unique way. During the last three years the novel partitioning algorithm invented by us in our QCDOC design has been adopted by Fujitsu for their billion dollar national K-computer project. We have jointly designed the memory prefetch engine for the next generation BlueGene/Q supercomputer chip with IBM Research under a formal Collaboration Agreement, thus participating directly in a $400M dollar project. Prototypes have been assembled and UoE staff travelled to IBM to assist in the bringup and debug of the design. An STFC funded 800Tflop/s prototype computer will be procured and installed in Edinburgh for UKQCD as part of the DiRAC facility.
Organisations
Publications
Ivanova T
(2013)
Orbifold instantons, moment maps, and Yang-Mills theory with sources
in Physical Review D
Berera A
(2013)
Eulerian field-theoretic closure formalisms for fluid turbulence.
in Physical review. E, Statistical, nonlinear, and soft matter physics
Lyon J
(2013)
Isospin asymmetries in B ? ( K * , ? ) ? / l + l - and B ? K l + l - in and beyond the standard model
in Physical Review D
Berera A
(2014)
Magnetic helicity and the evolution of decaying magnetohydrodynamic turbulence.
in Physical review. E, Statistical, nonlinear, and soft matter physics
Monteiro R
(2014)
Black holes and the double copy
in Journal of High Energy Physics
Grazzini M
(2014)
Resummation of the transverse-energy distribution in Higgs boson production at the Large Hadron Collider
in Journal of High Energy Physics
Monteiro R
(2014)
The kinematic algebras from the scattering equations
in Journal of High Energy Physics
Chambers A
(2014)
Feynman-Hellmann approach to the spin structure of hadrons
in Physical Review D
Bastero-Gil M
(2014)
Cosmological fluctuations of a random field and radiation fluid
in Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics
Palmer S
(2014)
The ABJM model is a higher gauge theory
in International Journal of Geometric Methods in Modern Physics
Sämann C
(2014)
Six-Dimensional Superconformal Field Theories from Principal 3-Bundles over Twistor Space
in Letters in Mathematical Physics
Lashkari N
(2014)
From state distinguishability to effective bulk locality
in Journal of High Energy Physics
Prochazka V
(2014)
Gluon condensates from the Hamiltonian formalism
in Journal of Physics A: Mathematical and Theoretical
Dukes M
(2014)
Webs and posets
in Journal of High Energy Physics
Frison J
(2014)
The Kaon Bag Parameter at Physical Mass
Del Debbio L
(2014)
MCgrid: Projecting cross section calculations on grids
in Computer Physics Communications
Boyle P
(2014)
Hierarchically deflated conjugate gradient
Kunduri HK
(2014)
Supersymmetric black holes with lens-space topology.
in Physical review letters
Figueroa-O'Farrill J
(2014)
The homogeneity theorem for supergravity backgrounds II: the six-dimensional theories
in Journal of High Energy Physics
Balasubramanian V
(2014)
Black Holes, Entanglement and Random Matrices
Cirio L
(2014)
Instantons and vortices on noncommutative toric varieties
in Reviews in Mathematical Physics
Falcioni G
(2014)
Multiple gluon exchange webs
in Journal of High Energy Physics
Abreu S
(2014)
From multiple unitarity cuts to the coproduct of Feynman integrals
in Journal of High Energy Physics
Badger S
(2014)
Computation of multi-leg amplitudes with NJET
in Journal of Physics: Conference Series
Hambrock C
(2014)
B ? K * form factors from flavor data to QCD and back
in Physical Review D
Boyle P
(2014)
Combined NNLO lattice-continuum determination of L 10 r
in Physical Review D
Bytsenko A
(2014)
Quantum black holes, elliptic genera and spectral partition functions
in International Journal of Geometric Methods in Modern Physics
Del Debbio L
(2014)
IR fixed points in lattice field theories
in International Journal of Modern Physics A
Li C
(2014)
Three-dimensional black holes and descendants
in Physics Letters B
RBC
(2014)
Domain wall QCD with physical quark masses
Hiller G
(2014)
(A)symmetries of weak decays at and near the kinematic endpoint
in Journal of High Energy Physics
Kunduri H
(2014)
Degenerate horizons, Einstein metrics, and Lens space bundles
in Journal of Geometry and Physics
Salgado P
(2014)
Topological gravity and transgression holography
in Physical Review D
Kunduri H
(2014)
Black hole non-uniqueness via spacetime topology in five dimensions
in Journal of High Energy Physics
Bastero-Gil M
(2014)
Theory of non-Gaussianity in warm inflation
in Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics
Bonvini M
(2014)
Updated Higgs cross section at approximate N 3 LO
in Journal of Physics G: Nuclear and Particle Physics
Bastero-Gil M
(2014)
Delaying the waterfall transition in warm hybrid inflation
in Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics
Bartrum S
(2014)
The importance of being warm (during inflation)
in Physics Letters B
Kunduri H
(2014)
The first law of soliton and black hole mechanics in five dimensions
in Classical and Quantum Gravity
Gardi E
(2014)
From webs to polylogarithms
in Journal of High Energy Physics
Behr N
(2014)
Renormalization and redundancy in 2d quantum field theories
in Journal of High Energy Physics
Del Debbio L
(2014)
Conformal scaling and the size of m -hadrons
in Physical Review D
Konechny A
(2014)
Entropy of conformal perturbation defects
in Journal of Physics A: Mathematical and Theoretical
Nocera E
(2014)
A first unbiased global determination of polarized PDFs and their uncertainties
in Nuclear Physics B
Ritter P
(2014)
Lie 2-algebra models
in Journal of High Energy Physics
Badger S
(2014)
Next-to-leading order QCD corrections to di-photon production in association with up to three jets at the Large Hadron Collider
in Journal of High Energy Physics
Horsley R
(2014)
Nucleon axial charge and pion decay constant from two-flavor lattice QCD
in Physics Letters B
Maltman K
(2014)
Lattice Input on the t V u s Puzzle
in Nuclear Physics B - Proceedings Supplements
Mylonas D
(2014)
Nonassociative field theory on non-geometric spaces
in Fortschritte der Physik
Description | Lots of interesting particle physics |
Exploitation Route | Lots of ways |
Sectors | Digital/Communication/Information Technologies (including Software),Education |
Description | Panel discussion on machine learning and future HPC Intel HPC developer conference. |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Industry/Business |
Results and Impact | Invited as panel expert on future of HPC and machine learning by Intel at their annual HPC developer conference attended widely by Industry and research lab sector. Note, Boyle second from left in photograph on the Intel web page linked below. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
URL | https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/events/hpcdevcon/overview.html |
Description | Talk on MPI optimisation on Intel stand at Supercomputing 2017 |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Industry/Business |
Results and Impact | Decision influence: I Influenced Intel to modify, update and release optimisations to their MPI library for the Intel Omnipath interconnect. Coauthored a paper on this topic. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
URL | http://inspirehep.net/record/1636204 |
Description | Talks presented on this activity at Intel Xeon Phi User Group conferences. |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Industry/Business |
Results and Impact | Presented work in several Intel Xeon Phi User Group meetings. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016,2017 |