Particle Theory at the Tait Institute

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.

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.