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
Banfi A
(2012)
Higgs- and Z-boson production with a jet veto.
in Physical review letters
Aartsen MG
(2016)
Searches for Sterile Neutrinos with the IceCube Detector.
in Physical review letters
Abbasi R
(2011)
Limits on neutrino emission from gamma-ray bursts with the 40 string IceCube detector.
in Physical review letters
Aartsen MG
(2013)
Search for dark matter annihilations in the sun with the 79-string IceCube detector.
in Physical review letters
Aartsen MG
(2013)
First observation of PeV-energy neutrinos with IceCube.
in Physical review letters
Dimopoulos S
(2014)
Maximally natural supersymmetry.
in Physical review letters
Abreu P
(2012)
Measurement of the proton-air cross section at vs=57 TeV with the Pierre Auger Observatory.
in Physical review letters
Aartsen MG
(2015)
Flavor Ratio of Astrophysical Neutrinos above 35 TeV in IceCube.
in Physical review letters
Aartsen MG
(2014)
Observation of high-energy astrophysical neutrinos in three years of IceCube data.
in Physical review letters
Aartsen M
(2016)
Constraints on Ultrahigh-Energy Cosmic-Ray Sources from a Search for Neutrinos above 10 PeV with IceCube
in Physical Review Letters
Aartsen MG
(2013)
Measurement of atmospheric neutrino oscillations with IceCube.
in Physical review letters
Mertsch P
(2011)
Fermi gamma-ray "bubbles" from stochastic acceleration of electrons.
in Physical review letters
Goertz F
(2012)
Bounds on warped extra dimensions from a Standard Model-like Higgs boson
in Physics Letters B
Abdallah J
(2015)
Simplified models for dark matter searches at the LHC
in Physics of the Dark Universe
Ellis R
(2012)
One-loop calculations in quantum field theory: From Feynman diagrams to unitarity cuts
in Physics Reports
COOPER-SARKAR A
(2012)
Quantifying uncertainties in the high-energy neutrino cross-section
in Pramana
ZANDERIGHI G
(2012)
Gauge boson production at colliders - Predictions for precision studies
in Pramana
IceCube Collaboration
(2013)
Evidence for high-energy extraterrestrial neutrinos at the IceCube detector.
in Science (New York, N.Y.)
Nielsen JT
(2016)
Marginal evidence for cosmic acceleration from Type Ia supernovae.
in Scientific reports
Aartsen M
(2015)
A COMBINED MAXIMUM-LIKELIHOOD ANALYSIS OF THE HIGH-ENERGY ASTROPHYSICAL NEUTRINO FLUX MEASURED WITH ICECUBE
in The Astrophysical Journal
Aartsen M
(2016)
SEARCH FOR SOURCES OF HIGH-ENERGY NEUTRONS WITH FOUR YEARS OF DATA FROM THE ICETOP DETECTOR
in The Astrophysical Journal
Abbasi R
(2012)
NEUTRINO ANALYSIS OF THE 2010 SEPTEMBER CRAB NEBULA FLARE AND TIME-INTEGRATED CONSTRAINTS ON NEUTRINO EMISSION FROM THE CRAB USING ICECUBE
in The Astrophysical Journal
Aartsen M
(2013)
OBSERVATION OF COSMIC-RAY ANISOTROPY WITH THE ICETOP AIR SHOWER ARRAY
in The Astrophysical Journal
Aartsen M
(2014)
SEARCHES FOR EXTENDED AND POINT-LIKE NEUTRINO SOURCES WITH FOUR YEARS OF ICECUBE DATA
in The Astrophysical Journal
Acero F
(2017)
Prospects for Cherenkov Telescope Array Observations of the Young Supernova Remnant RX J1713.7-3946
in The Astrophysical Journal
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 |