The Lancaster, Manchester, Sheffield Consortium for Fundamental Physics: Particle Physics from the LHC to the Universe
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 was 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 its properties. They are also searching for new particles such as those predicted by supersymmetry and other new physics theories. 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 explore the theory of supersymmetry and dark matter. We use data from experiments like the LHC to identify which of the many possible new theories are allowed by the data and to suggest new ways to explore them 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 to 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 has been studied in exquisite detail by the Planck satellite. 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 during and 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 was 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 its properties. They are also searching for new particles such as those predicted by supersymmetry and other new physics theories. 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 explore the theory of supersymmetry and dark matter. We use data from experiments like the LHC to identify which of the many possible new theories are allowed by the data and to suggest new ways to explore them 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 to 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 has been studied in exquisite detail by the Planck satellite. 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 during and 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
Dolan S
(2017)
Rainbow scattering in the gravitational field of a compact object
in Physical Review D
Dimopoulos K
(2017)
Quintessential inflation with a-attractors
in Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics
Pilaftsis A
(2017)
Exact RG invariance and symmetry improved 2PI effective potential
in Nuclear Physics B
Benone C
(2017)
Addendum to "Absorption of a massive scalar field by a charged black hole"
in Physical Review D
Bhupal Dev P
(2017)
Natural Alignment in the Two Higgs Doublet Model
in Journal of Physics: Conference Series
Ponglertsakul S
(2017)
Effect of scalar field mass on gravitating charged scalar solitons and black holes in a cavity
in Physics Letters B
Dimopoulos K
(2017)
Initial conditions for inflation
in Astroparticle Physics
Anderle D
(2017)
Towards semi-inclusive deep inelastic scattering at next-to-next-to-leading order
in Physical Review D
Hollowood T
(2017)
Decoherence, discord, and the quantum master equation for cosmological perturbations
in Physical Review D
Dimopoulos K
(2017)
Ultra slow-roll inflation demystified
in Physics Letters B
Kim J
(2017)
Inflaton condensate fragmentation: Analytical conditions and application to a -attractor models
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
Choudhury A
(2017)
Impact of LHC data on muon g - 2 solutions in a vectorlike extension of the constrained MSSM
in Physical Review D
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
Anderle D
(2017)
Using hadron-in-jet data in a global analysis of D * fragmentation functions
in Physical Review D
Dimopoulos K
(2017)
Loop inflection-point inflation
Van De Bruck C
(2017)
Reheating and preheating in the simplest extension of Starobinsky inflation
in International Journal of Modern Physics D
De Bruck C
(2017)
Non-Gaussianity in multi-sound-speed disformally coupled inflation
in Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics
Dickinson R
(2017)
Fock-space projection operators for semi-inclusive final states
in Physics Letters B
Van De Bruck C
(2017)
Testing coupled dark energy models with their cosmological background evolution
in Physical Review D
Dedes A
(2017)
Radiative light dark matter
in Physical Review D
Dolan S
(2017)
Spinning Black Holes May Grow Hair
in Physics
Mifsud J
(2017)
Probing the imprints of generalized interacting dark energy on the growth of perturbations
in Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics
Adhikari R
(2017)
A White Paper on keV sterile neutrino Dark Matter
in Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics
Ravasio S.F.
(2017)
Impact of the Recoil Scheme on the Accuracy of Angular-Ordered Parton Showers
in Frascati Physics Series
Choudhury A
(2017)
Muon g - 2 and related phenomenology in constrained vector-like extensions of the MSSM
in Journal of High Energy Physics
Ambru? V
(2017)
Thermal expectation values of fermions on anti-de Sitter space-time
in Classical and Quantum Gravity
Anderle D
(2017)
Fragmentation functions beyond fixed order accuracy
in Physical Review D
Djouadi A
(2017)
Enhanced rates for diphoton resonances in the MSSM
in Physics Letters B
Bezrukov F
(2017)
Hiding an elephant: heavy sterile neutrino with large mixing angle does not contradict cosmology
in Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics
Dickinson R
(2017)
Working directly with probabilities in quantum field theory
in Journal of Physics: Conference Series
Dimopoulos K
(2017)
Thermal inflation with a thermal waterfall scalar field coupled to a light spectator scalar field
in Physical Review D
Ponglertsakul S
(2017)
Black hole solutions in Einstein-charged scalar field theory
Leite L
(2017)
Absorption of electromagnetic and gravitational waves by Kerr black holes
in Physics Letters B
Roszkowski L
(2017)
Towards understanding thermal history of the Universe through direct and indirect detection of dark matter
in Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics
Akcay S
(2017)
Spin-orbit precession for eccentric black hole binaries at first order in the mass ratio
in Classical and Quantum Gravity
Choudhury A
(2017)
Blind Spots for Direct Detection with Simplified DM Models and the LHC
in Universe
Martínez R
(2018)
Soft gluon evolution and non-global logarithms
Darmé L
(2018)
Light dark Higgs boson in minimal sub-GeV dark matter scenarios
in Journal of High Energy Physics
Roszkowski L
(2018)
WIMP dark matter candidates and searches-current status and future prospects.
in Reports on progress in physics. Physical Society (Great Britain)
Macedo C
(2018)
Spectral lines of extreme compact objects
in Physical Review D
Van De Bruck C
(2018)
Einstein-Gauss-Bonnet gravity with extra dimensions
Belyaev A
(2018)
Problems with Higgsplosion
in Physical Review D
Branchina V
(2018)
Protecting the stability of the electroweak vacuum from Planck-scale gravitational effects
in Physical Review D
Finn K
(2018)
Eisenhart lift for field theories
in Physical Review D
Finn K
(2018)
A Finite Measure for the Initial Conditions of Inflation
Belyaev A
(2018)
Problems with Higgsplosion
Daza Á
(2018)
Wada structures in a binary black hole system
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. |
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 | 2017 |
Sector | Education |
Impact Types | Cultural,Societal |