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
Ariga A
(2019)
FASER's physics reach for long-lived particles
in Physical Review D
Van De Bruck C
(2015)
Simplest extension of Starobinsky inflation
in Physical Review D
Choudhury A
(2016)
Revisiting the exclusion limits from direct chargino-neutralino production at the LHC
in Physical Review D
Dev P
(2014)
Neutrino mass and dark matter in light of recent AMS-02 results
in Physical Review D
Dimopoulos K
(2016)
Modelling inflation with a power-law approach to the inflationary plateau
in Physical Review D
Edholm J
(2016)
Behavior of the Newtonian potential for ghost-free gravity and singularity free gravity
in Physical Review D
Trojanowski S
(2020)
Dark matter relic density from conformally or disformally coupled light scalars
in Physical Review D
Ambrus V
(2016)
Rotating fermions inside a cylindrical boundary
in Physical Review D
Mazumdar A
(2014)
Dynamical breaking of shift symmetry in supergravity-based inflation
in Physical Review D
Kim J
(2017)
Chaotic initial conditions for nonminimally coupled inflation via a conformal factor with a zero
in Physical Review D
Leite L
(2018)
Absorption of electromagnetic plane waves by rotating black holes
in Physical Review D
Nolan P
(2015)
Octupolar invariants for compact binaries on quasicircular orbits
in Physical Review D
Finn K
(2020)
Frame covariance in quantum gravity
in Physical Review D
Awasthi R
(2016)
Implications of the diboson excess for neutrinoless double beta decay and lepton flavor violation in TeV scale left-right symmetric model
in Physical Review D
Van De Bruck C
(2016)
Running of the running and entropy perturbations during inflation
in Physical Review D
Van De Bruck C
(2018)
Searching for dark matter-dark energy interactions: Going beyond the conformal case
in Physical Review D
McDonald J
(2014)
Hemispherical power asymmetry from a space-dependent component of the adiabatic power spectrum
in Physical Review D
Akcay S
(2020)
Dissipation in extreme mass-ratio binaries with a spinning secondary
in Physical Review D
Van De Bruck C
(2017)
Testing coupled dark energy models with their cosmological background evolution
in Physical Review D
Percival J
(2020)
Quasinormal modes of massive vector fields on the Kerr spacetime
in Physical Review D
McDonald J
(2016)
Nonminimally coupled inflation with initial conditions from a preinflation anamorphic contracting era
in Physical Review D
Pilaftsis A
(2016)
Diphoton signatures from heavy axion decays at the CERN Large Hadron Collider
in Physical Review D
Finn K
(2021)
Quantizing the Eisenhart lift
in Physical Review D
Crispino L
(2015)
Scattering from charged black holes and supergravity
in Physical Review D
Dedes A
(2017)
Radiative light dark matter
in Physical Review D
Kent C
(2015)
Hadamard renormalized scalar field theory on anti-de Sitter spacetime
in Physical Review D
Dolan S
(2015)
Stability of black holes in Einstein-charged scalar field theory in a cavity
in Physical Review D
Conroy A
(2015)
Nonlocal gravity in D dimensions: Propagators, entropy, and a bouncing cosmology
in Physical Review D
Brax P
(2014)
Early modified gravity: Implications for cosmology
in Physical Review D
Mazumdar A
(2016)
Nonperturbative overproduction of axionlike particles via derivative interactions
in Physical Review D
Battye R
(2022)
Towards robust constraints on axion dark matter using PSR J1745-2900
in Physical Review D
Dimopoulos K
(2018)
Instant preheating in quintessential inflation with a -attractors
in Physical Review D
Sloan D
(2020)
T -model inflation and bouncing cosmology
in Physical Review D
Bhupal Dev P
(2015)
TeV-scale left-right symmetry and large mixing effects in neutrinoless double beta decay
in Physical Review D
Van De Bruck C
(2021)
Inflation and scale-invariant R 2 gravity
in Physical Review D
Law K
(2022)
Charged and C P -violating kink solutions in the two-Higgs-doublet model
in Physical Review D
Darvishi N
(2019)
Quartic coupling unification in the maximally symmetric 2HDM
in Physical Review D
Ilakovac A
(2014)
Lepton dipole moments in supersymmetric low-scale seesaw models
in Physical Review D
Van De Bruck C
(2015)
Stabilizing the Planck mass shortly after inflation
in Physical Review D
Brax P
(2020)
Swampland and screened modified gravity
in Physical Review D
Stratton T
(2019)
Rainbow scattering of gravitational plane waves by a compact body
in Physical Review D
Kim J
(2018)
Clockwork Higgs portal model for freeze-in dark matter
in Physical Review D
Bomark N
(2014)
3.5 keV x-ray line from decaying gravitino dark matter
in Physical Review D
Darvishi N
(2020)
Classifying accidental symmetries in multi-Higgs doublet models
in Physical Review D
Dolan S
(2016)
Stable photon orbits in stationary axisymmetric electrovacuum spacetimes
in Physical Review D
Van De Bruck C
(2016)
Higgs inflation with a Gauss-Bonnet term in the Jordan frame
in Physical Review D
Dev P
(2016)
Probing the scale of new physics by Advanced LIGO/VIRGO
in Physical Review D
Anderle D
(2017)
Towards semi-inclusive deep inelastic scattering at next-to-next-to-leading order
in Physical Review D
Kim J
(2018)
Freeze-in dark matter from a sub-Higgs mass clockwork sector via the Higgs portal
in Physical Review D
Dulat S
(2016)
New parton distribution functions from a global analysis of quantum chromodynamics
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 |