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.
Organisations
Publications
Haisch U
(2014)
Determining the structure of dark-matter couplings at the LHC
in Physical Review D
Hamilton K
(2013)
NNLOPS simulation of Higgs boson production
in Journal of High Energy Physics
Hamilton K
(2012)
MINLO: multi-scale improved NLO
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
Hardy E
(2013)
Retrofitted natural supersymmetry from a U(1)
in Journal of High Energy Physics
Hardy E
(2012)
Precision unification in ?SUSY with a 125GeV Higgs
in Journal of High Energy Physics
Hausegger S
(2016)
Footprints of Loop I on Cosmic Microwave Background maps
in Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics
He Y
(2014)
Heterotic model building: 16 special manifolds
in Journal of High Energy Physics
Hooper D
(2011)
Cosmogenic photons as a test of ultra-high energy cosmic ray composition
in Astroparticle Physics
Hunt P
(2014)
Reconstruction of the primordial power spectrum of curvature perturbations using multiple data sets
in Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle 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
IceCube Collaboration
(2017)
Measurement of the multi-TeV neutrino interaction cross-section with IceCube using Earth absorption.
in Nature
IceCube Collaboration
(2013)
Evidence for high-energy extraterrestrial neutrinos at the IceCube detector.
in Science (New York, N.Y.)
IceCube Collaboration
(2012)
An absence of neutrinos associated with cosmic-ray acceleration in ?-ray bursts.
in Nature
Jäger B
(2012)
Next-to-leading order QCD corrections to electroweak Zjj production in the POWHEG BOX
in Journal of High Energy Physics
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
Jäger B
(2014)
Electroweak ZZjj production in the Standard Model and beyond in the POWHEG-BOX V2
in Journal of High Energy Physics
Kahlhoefer F
(2014)
Colliding clusters and dark matter self-interactions
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Kahlhoefer F
(2015)
On the interpretation of dark matter self-interactions in Abell 3827
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society: Letters
Karlberg A
(2014)
NNLOPS accurate Drell-Yan production
in Journal of High Energy Physics
Klages H
(2012)
Enhancements to the Southern Pierre Auger Observatory
in Journal of Physics: Conference Series
Klaput M
(2013)
Moduli stabilising in heterotic nearly Kähler compactifications
in Journal of High Energy Physics
Klaput M
(2013)
Heterotic Calabi-Yau compactifications with flux
in Journal of High Energy Physics
Kraljic D
(2016)
Frames of most uniform Hubble flow
in Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics
Liu H
(2014)
FINGERPRINTS OF GALACTIC LOOP I ON THE COSMIC MICROWAVE BACKGROUND
in The Astrophysical Journal
Mahmoudi F
(2012)
Flavour Les Houches Accord: Interfacing flavour related codes
in Computer Physics Communications
March-Russell J
(2012)
Asymmetric dark matter via spontaneous co-genesis
in Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics
March-Russell J
(2012)
Closing in on asymmetric dark matter I: model independent limits for interactions with quarks
in Journal of High Energy Physics
Melia T
(2012)
Gluon fusion contribution to W + W - + jet production
in Journal of High Energy Physics
Mertsch P
(2014)
AMS-02 data confront acceleration of cosmic ray secondaries in nearby sources
in Physical Review D
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
Mertsch P
(2013)
Loops and spurs: the angular power spectrum of the Galactic synchrotron background
in Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics
Mertsch P
(2014)
A hadronic explanation of the lepton anomaly
in Journal of Physics: Conference Series
Nadathur S
(2011)
Reconciling the local void with the CMB
in Physical Review D
Nadathur S
(2012)
The integrated Sachs-Wolfe imprint of cosmic superstructures: a problem for ?CDM
in Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle 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
Nielsen J
(2016)
Marginal evidence for cosmic acceleration from Type Ia supernovae
in Scientific Reports
Olive K
(2016)
Review of Particle Physics
in Chinese Physics C
Olive K
(2014)
Review of Particle Physics
in Chinese Physics C
P. Conlon J
(2020)
Moduli Stabilisation and the Holographic Swampland
in Letters in High Energy Physics
Sarkar S
(2013)
Theory Summary: Very High Energy Cosmic Rays
in EPJ Web of Conferences
Scott P
(2012)
Use of event-level neutrino telescope data in global fits for theories of new physics
in Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics
Settimo M
(2012)
Measurement of the cosmic ray energy spectrum using hybrid events of the Pierre Auger Observatory
in The European Physical Journal Plus
Wright B
(2012)
Darkness Visible?
in Australasian Journal of Philosophy
ZANDERIGHI G
(2012)
Gauge boson production at colliders - Predictions for precision studies
in Pramana
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 | 09/2017 |
End | 09/2020 |