The Lancaster, Manchester, Sheffield Consortium for Fundamental Physics: Particle Physics, From the Universe to the LHC
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Manchester
Department Name: Physics and Astronomy
Abstract
Particle physics is all about understanding the elementary building blocks of nature and their interactions. Over the years, physicists have developed the Standard Model of particle physics, which is extremely successful in describing a very wide range of natural phenomena from things as basic as how light works and why atoms form through to the complicated workings inside stars and the synthesis of nuclei in the first few minutes after the Big Bang. However, we know that the Standard Model is not the whole story for it leaves many questions unanswered. Our proposal focuses on these unanswered questions and the way that scientists hope to address them in the coming years using experiments like the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) or observations like those that will be made using the Planck satellite.
The discovery at the LHC of a Higgs boson is a major milestone in our quest to understand the origin of mass. It is certainly not, however, the whole story. The LHC experiments are working hard to measure the properties of the particle they have discovered. They are also searching for new particles such as those predicted by supersymmetry. If supersymmetry is discovered then it offers the hope to explain the origin of the Dark Matter that makes up a large fraction of the material that is known to exist in the Universe. The scientists in our consortium will explore the theory of supersymmetry and dark matter. We will use data from experiments like the LHC to identify which of the many possible variants of supersymmetry are allowed by the data and to suggest new ways to explore those models in experiments. Any "new physics" produced at the LHC will be produced as a result of smashing two protons into each other, a very complicated environment, usually in association with "jets" of other particles. Members of our consortium will explore how we can make use of these jets to learn more about the associated new physics: the better we understand the environment in which new physics occurs, the more we are able to learn about the new physics itself. This is a complicated business that often necessitates computer simulations of particle collisions. Our members are experts in these simulations and have plans on how the make them more accurate, which is necessary if we are to make the most of the exciting data from the LHC.
The Standard Model of particle physics is also insufficient when it comes to explaining the early history of the Universe, when it was hot and dense. The evidence is now very strong that the history began with an era of accelerating expansion, called inflation. We are experts on inflation and its consequences. Inflation makes the Universe featureless, except for tiny quantum fluctuations that cause the density of matter and energy in the Universe to vary with position. These initially small variations grow to become observable effects. One effect is the formation of the billions of galaxies that populate the night sky. Another is to leave a tiny imprint on the cosmic microwave background radiation (CMB), a faint hum of microwave radiation in which the Universe is bathed. The CMB is being studied in exquisite detail by the Planck satellite, which was launched in 2009. We are at the forefront of interpreting the Planck data in the hope of pinning down which of the various theories of the early universe are ruled out and which remain viable. The deficiencies of the Standard Model extend still further for it does not explain the amount nor even the existence of ordinary matter. Our scientists will use this to constrain possible physics beyond the Standard Model and to do that they need to master the dynamics of the Universe shortly after the end of inflation. Last but not least, we hope to understand better the mysterious "Dark Energy" that drives the current and future acceleration of the Universe: one possibility is that it is because Einstein's theory of gravity is not quite right and that is something we will explore.
The discovery at the LHC of a Higgs boson is a major milestone in our quest to understand the origin of mass. It is certainly not, however, the whole story. The LHC experiments are working hard to measure the properties of the particle they have discovered. They are also searching for new particles such as those predicted by supersymmetry. If supersymmetry is discovered then it offers the hope to explain the origin of the Dark Matter that makes up a large fraction of the material that is known to exist in the Universe. The scientists in our consortium will explore the theory of supersymmetry and dark matter. We will use data from experiments like the LHC to identify which of the many possible variants of supersymmetry are allowed by the data and to suggest new ways to explore those models in experiments. Any "new physics" produced at the LHC will be produced as a result of smashing two protons into each other, a very complicated environment, usually in association with "jets" of other particles. Members of our consortium will explore how we can make use of these jets to learn more about the associated new physics: the better we understand the environment in which new physics occurs, the more we are able to learn about the new physics itself. This is a complicated business that often necessitates computer simulations of particle collisions. Our members are experts in these simulations and have plans on how the make them more accurate, which is necessary if we are to make the most of the exciting data from the LHC.
The Standard Model of particle physics is also insufficient when it comes to explaining the early history of the Universe, when it was hot and dense. The evidence is now very strong that the history began with an era of accelerating expansion, called inflation. We are experts on inflation and its consequences. Inflation makes the Universe featureless, except for tiny quantum fluctuations that cause the density of matter and energy in the Universe to vary with position. These initially small variations grow to become observable effects. One effect is the formation of the billions of galaxies that populate the night sky. Another is to leave a tiny imprint on the cosmic microwave background radiation (CMB), a faint hum of microwave radiation in which the Universe is bathed. The CMB is being studied in exquisite detail by the Planck satellite, which was launched in 2009. We are at the forefront of interpreting the Planck data in the hope of pinning down which of the various theories of the early universe are ruled out and which remain viable. The deficiencies of the Standard Model extend still further for it does not explain the amount nor even the existence of ordinary matter. Our scientists will use this to constrain possible physics beyond the Standard Model and to do that they need to master the dynamics of the Universe shortly after the end of inflation. Last but not least, we hope to understand better the mysterious "Dark Energy" that drives the current and future acceleration of the Universe: one possibility is that it is because Einstein's theory of gravity is not quite right and that is something we will explore.
Planned Impact
See the attached "Pathways to Impact" document for details.
This project has impact beyond the international scientific community mainly through the training of highly skilled graduate students and postdoctoral researchers and through extensive "outreach" activities of various kinds aimed at engaging directly with the general public, school children, teachers, policy makers and the media. Undergraduate teaching is also impacted beneficially by our research.
This project has impact beyond the international scientific community mainly through the training of highly skilled graduate students and postdoctoral researchers and through extensive "outreach" activities of various kinds aimed at engaging directly with the general public, school children, teachers, policy makers and the media. Undergraduate teaching is also impacted beneficially by our research.
Organisations
Publications
Ambrus V
(2016)
1st Karl Schwarzschild Meeting on Gravitational Physics
Winstanley E
(2016)
1st Karl Schwarzschild Meeting on Gravitational Physics
Bomark N
(2014)
3.5 keV x-ray line from decaying gravitino dark matter
in Physical Review D
Alekhin S
(2016)
A facility to search for hidden particles at the CERN SPS: the SHiP physics case.
in Reports on progress in physics. Physical Society (Great Britain)
Finn K
(2018)
A Finite Measure for the Initial Conditions of Inflation
Bomark N
(2015)
A light NMSSM pseudoscalar Higgs boson at the LHC redux
in Journal of High Energy Physics
McDonald J
(2015)
A minimal sub-Planckian axion inflation model with large tensor-to-scalar ratio
in Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics
Albrecht J
(2019)
A Roadmap for HEP Software and Computing R&D for the 2020s
in Computing and Software for Big Science
Adhikari R
(2017)
A White Paper on keV sterile neutrino Dark Matter
in Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics
Benone C
(2014)
Absorption of a massive scalar field by a charged black hole
in Physical Review D
Leite L
(2017)
Absorption of electromagnetic and gravitational waves by Kerr black holes
in Physics Letters B
Leite L
(2018)
Absorption of electromagnetic plane waves by rotating black holes
in Physical Review D
Leite L
(2016)
Absorption of massless scalar field by rotating black holes
in International Journal of Modern Physics D
Birch-Sykes C
(2020)
Accidental symmetries in the 2HDMEFT
in Nuclear Physics B
Dimopoulos K
(2016)
Active galaxies can make axionic dark energy
in Astroparticle Physics
Benone C
(2017)
Addendum to "Absorption of a massive scalar field by a charged black hole"
in Physical Review D
Choudhury S
(2014)
An accurate bound on tensor-to-scalar ratio and the scale of inflation
in Nuclear Physics B
Dimopoulos K
(2020)
An analytic treatment of quartic hilltop inflation
in Physics Letters B
Dimopoulos K
(2020)
An analytic treatment of Quartic Hilltop Inflation
Mifsud J
(2019)
An interacting dark sector and the implications of the first gravitational-wave standard siren detection on current constraints
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Ambrus V
(2018)
Analysis of scalar and fermion quantum field theory on anti-de Sitter spacetime
in International Journal of Modern Physics D
Bezrukov F
(2016)
Applicability of approximations used in calculations of the spectrum of dark matter particles produced in particle decays
in Physical Review D
Battye R
(2016)
Approximation of the potential in scalar field dark energy models
in Physical Review D
Biswas T
(2016)
At the Frontier of Spacetime
Biswas T
(2014)
Atick-Witten Hagedorn conjecture, near scale-invariant matter and blue-tilted gravity power spectrum
in Journal of High Energy Physics
Roszkowski L
(2015)
Axino dark matter with low reheating temperature
in Journal of High Energy Physics
Balázs C
(2014)
Baryogenesis, dark matter and inflation in the next-to-minimal supersymmetric standard model
in Journal of High Energy Physics
Edholm J
(2016)
Behavior of the Newtonian potential for ghost-free gravity and singularity free gravity
in Physical Review D
Lyth D
(2014)
BICEP2, the curvature perturbation and supersymmetry
in Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics
Shipley J
(2016)
Binary black hole shadows, chaotic scattering and the Cantor set
in Classical and Quantum Gravity
Shipley J
(2016)
Binary black hole shadows, chaotic scattering and the Cantor set
Ponglertsakul S
(2015)
Black hole solutions in Einstein-charged scalar field theory
Ponglertsakul S
(2017)
Black hole solutions in Einstein-charged scalar field theory
Ashoorioon A
(2014)
Black holes as beads on cosmic strings
in Classical and Quantum Gravity
Shepherd B
(2017)
Black holes with s u N $$ \mathfrak{s}\mathfrak{u}(N) $$ gauge field hair and superconducting horizons
in Journal of High Energy Physics
Choudhury A
(2017)
Blind Spots for Direct Detection with Simplified DM Models and the LHC
Choudhury A
(2017)
Blind spots for direct detection with simplified DM models and the LHC
Choudhury A
(2017)
Blind Spots for Direct Detection with Simplified DM Models and the LHC
in Universe
Altheimer A
(2014)
Boosted objects and jet substructure at the LHC. Report of BOOST2012, held at IFIC Valencia, 23rd-27th of July 2012
in The European Physical Journal C
Chatterjee A
(2015)
Bound on largest r ? 0.1 from sub-Planckian excursions of inflaton
in Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics
Dolan S
(2015)
Bound states of the Dirac equation on Kerr spacetime
in Classical and Quantum Gravity
Dolan S
(2015)
Bound states of the Dirac equation on Kerr spacetime
Forshaw J
(2020)
Building a consistent parton shower
in Journal of High Energy Physics
Donnachie A
(2014)
Central soft production of hadrons in pp collisions
in International Journal of Modern Physics A
Kim J
(2017)
Chaotic initial conditions for nonminimally coupled inflation via a conformal factor with a zero
in Physical Review D
Law K
(2022)
Charged and C P -violating kink solutions in the two-Higgs-doublet model
in Physical Review D
Description | Progress on many fronts towards a better understanding of the universe, by developing theoretical models constrained by data from the LHC and cosmology experiments such as Planck. |
Exploitation Route | By continued research. |
Sectors | Education |
Description | Researchers supported by this award have been very active in outreach activities for the general public, schools and scientists from other fields. |
First Year Of Impact | 2014 |
Sector | Education |
Impact Types | Cultural Societal |