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
Buras A
(2012)
Erratum: charm quark contribution to $ {K^{+}}\to {\pi^{+}}\nu \overline{\nu} $ at next-to-next-to-leading order
in Journal of High Energy Physics
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
Mahmoudi F
(2012)
Flavour Les Houches Accord: Interfacing flavour related codes
in Computer Physics Communications
Abbasi R
(2012)
Searching for soft relativistic jets in core-collapse supernovae with the IceCube optical follow-up program
in Astronomy & Astrophysics
Nadathur S
(2012)
The integrated Sachs-Wolfe imprint of cosmic superstructures: a problem for ?CDM
in Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics
Hamilton K
(2012)
MINLO: multi-scale improved NLO
in Journal of High Energy Physics
Abbasi R
(2012)
OBSERVATION OF ANISOTROPY IN THE GALACTIC COSMIC-RAY ARRIVAL DIRECTIONS AT 400 TeV WITH ICECUBE
in The Astrophysical Journal
Banfi A
(2012)
NLL+NNLO predictions for jet-veto efficiencies in Higgs-boson and Drell-Yan production
in Journal of High Energy Physics
Frandsen M
(2012)
Loop-induced dark matter direct detection signals from ?-ray lines
in Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics
COOPER-SARKAR A
(2012)
Quantifying uncertainties in the high-energy neutrino cross-section
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 |