Particle Theory at the Higgs Centre
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Edinburgh
Department Name: Sch of Physics and Astronomy
Abstract
There are two types of fundamental forces in Nature: those responsible for particle interactions at subatomic scales and those responsible for the large scale structure of the universe. The former is described by Quantum Field Theories (QFT) such as the Standard Model(SM). Currently, our understanding of Nature at the most fundamental level is at the crossroads. In 2012, the LHC at CERN collided protons at higher energies than ever before, and observed sufficient collisions to find a significant excess, consistent with the Higgs boson of the SM. Over recent years it has become evident that this is indeed a SM Higgs, responsible for generating masses for vector bosons, leptons and quarks. Currently data at even higher energies is being taken at LHC, and it should soon become clearer whether there is more physics at the TeV scale, or whether we need to build machines capable of going to even higher energies. At large scales the European Planck satellite has given the most precise measurements of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) and it is an open question to determine the particle physics model best capable of describing the physics underlying the large scale properties of the Universe. In 2016 the detection of gravitational waves was announced by LIGO, marking the start of a new chapter in astrophysics. Thus at both small and large scales, this is a transformative time in fundamental physics.
Our programme of research at the Higgs Centre for Theoretical Physics in Edinburgh is designed to be at the forefront of these new discoveries: indeed Peter Higgs himself is Emeritus Professor here. Specifically, we provide theoretical calculations, using pen and paper, and the most powerful supercomputers, of both the huge number of background processes to be seen at LHC due to known physics, and the tiny signals expected in various models of new physics, in order to discriminate between signal and background, and thus maximise the discovery potential of the LHC.
In parallel, we will attempt to understand the more complete picture of all the forces of Nature that may begin to emerge. The fundamental force responsible for large scale structure is described by Einstein's General Theory of Relativity (GR). During the last three decades, string theory has emerged as a conceptually rich theoretical framework reconciling both GR and QFT. The low-energy limit of String Theory is supergravity (SUGRA), a nontrivial extension of GR in which the universe is described by a spacetime with additional geometric data. Members of the group have pioneered approaches to deriving observable cosmological consequences of String Theory, to studying how the geometrical notions on which GR is predicated change at very small ("stringy") distance scales. The group is also engaged in using these theories to improve calculations in existing field theories. Recent discoveries of relationships between QCD amplitudes and GR, known as the 'double copy', offer new insight into gravitational phenomena.
In summary, our research will impinge on both theoretical and computational aspects relevant to probing the phenomenology of LHC data, and will also encompass a wide range of topics in QFT and gravitational aspects of String Theory, impinging on cosmology, particle physics and on the very nature of physics itself.
Our programme of research at the Higgs Centre for Theoretical Physics in Edinburgh is designed to be at the forefront of these new discoveries: indeed Peter Higgs himself is Emeritus Professor here. Specifically, we provide theoretical calculations, using pen and paper, and the most powerful supercomputers, of both the huge number of background processes to be seen at LHC due to known physics, and the tiny signals expected in various models of new physics, in order to discriminate between signal and background, and thus maximise the discovery potential of the LHC.
In parallel, we will attempt to understand the more complete picture of all the forces of Nature that may begin to emerge. The fundamental force responsible for large scale structure is described by Einstein's General Theory of Relativity (GR). During the last three decades, string theory has emerged as a conceptually rich theoretical framework reconciling both GR and QFT. The low-energy limit of String Theory is supergravity (SUGRA), a nontrivial extension of GR in which the universe is described by a spacetime with additional geometric data. Members of the group have pioneered approaches to deriving observable cosmological consequences of String Theory, to studying how the geometrical notions on which GR is predicated change at very small ("stringy") distance scales. The group is also engaged in using these theories to improve calculations in existing field theories. Recent discoveries of relationships between QCD amplitudes and GR, known as the 'double copy', offer new insight into gravitational phenomena.
In summary, our research will impinge on both theoretical and computational aspects relevant to probing the phenomenology of LHC data, and will also encompass a wide range of topics in QFT and gravitational aspects of String Theory, impinging on cosmology, particle physics and on the very nature of physics itself.
Planned Impact
The Higgs Centre is involved in a wide variety of outreach activities. We have developed a massive open online course (MOOC) on the discovery of the Higgs Boson, which ran every year from 2014, fostering this appreciation of cutting edge particle physics in thousands of interested participants in a non-mathematical manner. We have reached over 30,000 people already.
The range of activities carried out by Higgs Centre staff members includes public talks in Edinburgh, Europe and beyond, film showings within the Higgs Centre, a new workshop series for secondary school teachers, expert interviews in the media (radio and written press) and press releases about our work. These successful activities will continue alongside plans for increase through greater personal initiative by staff members and cooperation with organizations including the University, Particle Physics 4 Scottish Schools and the Scottish Schools Education Research Centre.
The Centre is also involved in various engagement activities through its affiliation with the Maxwell Institute, whose vision is to maintain a strong connectivity to the world outside theoretical science. To deliver this vision, the Maxwell Institute aims to enhance the breadth of theoretical research addressed at the two universities, to expand its impact on a range of applications to other academic areas, and to increase the reach and impact of our research by promoting collaborations with other academic disciplines, industry and commerce, and the engagement of the public. This is well organised through the Outreach Director.
We have impacted the high performance computing industry and consequently all of scientific computing in a quite unique way.
We have an ongoing and contracted programme of work with Intel on future HPC architectures targeting the 2021 timeframe, and fund 2.0 FTE working on the codesign of these future products with QCD simulations. We lead the Turing Institute codesign project with Intel, which has led to two Intel staff placed in Edinburgh and supervised by our faculty to analyse emerging
machine learning workloads. One joint US patent application has been made with more work planned in the proposal timeframe. Our algorithm work connects to the Turing programme with two Turing Fellows in the proposal.
The range of activities carried out by Higgs Centre staff members includes public talks in Edinburgh, Europe and beyond, film showings within the Higgs Centre, a new workshop series for secondary school teachers, expert interviews in the media (radio and written press) and press releases about our work. These successful activities will continue alongside plans for increase through greater personal initiative by staff members and cooperation with organizations including the University, Particle Physics 4 Scottish Schools and the Scottish Schools Education Research Centre.
The Centre is also involved in various engagement activities through its affiliation with the Maxwell Institute, whose vision is to maintain a strong connectivity to the world outside theoretical science. To deliver this vision, the Maxwell Institute aims to enhance the breadth of theoretical research addressed at the two universities, to expand its impact on a range of applications to other academic areas, and to increase the reach and impact of our research by promoting collaborations with other academic disciplines, industry and commerce, and the engagement of the public. This is well organised through the Outreach Director.
We have impacted the high performance computing industry and consequently all of scientific computing in a quite unique way.
We have an ongoing and contracted programme of work with Intel on future HPC architectures targeting the 2021 timeframe, and fund 2.0 FTE working on the codesign of these future products with QCD simulations. We lead the Turing Institute codesign project with Intel, which has led to two Intel staff placed in Edinburgh and supervised by our faculty to analyse emerging
machine learning workloads. One joint US patent application has been made with more work planned in the proposal timeframe. Our algorithm work connects to the Turing programme with two Turing Fellows in the proposal.
Organisations
Publications
Cruz-Martinez J
(2021)
Future Tests of Parton Distributions
in Acta Physica Polonica B
Altarelli G.
(1998)
Theoretical analysis of polarized structure functions
in Acta Physica Polonica B
Amoroso S
(2022)
Snowmass 2021 Whitepaper: Proton Structure at the Precision Frontier
in Acta Physica Polonica B
Andersen J
(2022)
HEJ 2.1: High-energy resummation with vector bosons and next-to-leading logarithms
in Computer Physics Communications
Howson T
(2020)
Directly calculating the glue component of the nucleon in lattice QCD: QCDSF-UKQCD-CSSM Collaborations
in EPJ Web of Conferences
Dittmar M.
(2005)
Introduction to parton distribution functions
in HERA and the LHC: A Workshop on the Implications of HERA for LHC Physics, HERA-LHC 2005 - Proceedings
Clark D
(2021)
Effect of spatial dimension on a model of fluid turbulence
in Journal of Fluid Mechanics
Clark D
(2021)
Critical transition to a non-chaotic regime in isotropic turbulence
in Journal of Fluid Mechanics
Li Y
(2020)
Superfast amplification and superfast nonlinear saturation of perturbations as a mechanism of turbulence
in Journal of Fluid Mechanics
Guevara A
(2021)
A worldsheet for Kerr
in Journal of High Energy Physics
Draper Z
(2023)
Three relativistic neutrons in a finite volume
in Journal of High Energy Physics
De La Cruz L
(2020)
Classical Yang-Mills observables from amplitudes
in Journal of High Energy Physics
Mertens T
(2023)
A proposal for 3d quantum gravity and its bulk factorization
in Journal of High Energy Physics
Caron-Huot S
(2020)
Two-parton scattering amplitudes in the Regge limit to high loop orders
in Journal of High Energy Physics
Del Debbio L
(2021)
Neural-network analysis of Parton Distribution Functions from Ioffe-time pseudodistributions
in Journal of High Energy Physics
Berera A
(2020)
Role of trans-Planckian modes in cosmology
in Journal of High Energy Physics
Abreu S
(2020)
From positive geometries to a coaction on hypergeometric functions
in Journal of High Energy Physics
Gardi E
(2021)
Boomerang webs up to three-loop order
in Journal of High Energy Physics
Kol U
(2022)
The radial action from probe amplitudes to all orders
in Journal of High Energy Physics
Cè M
(2021)
Vacuum correlators at short distances from lattice QCD
in Journal of High Energy Physics
Falcioni G
(2022)
Scattering amplitudes in the Regge limit and the soft anomalous dimension through four loops
in Journal of High Energy Physics
Monteiro R
(2021)
Classical solutions and their double copy in split signature
in Journal of High Energy Physics
Falcioni G
(2022)
Renormalization of gluonic leading-twist operators in covariant gauges
in Journal of High Energy Physics
Candido A
(2023)
Neutrino structure functions from GeV to EeV energies
in Journal of High Energy Physics
Byrne E
(2022)
One-loop central-emission vertex for two gluons in $$ \mathcal{N} $$ = 4 super Yang-Mills theory
in Journal of High Energy Physics
Emond W
(2022)
Amplitudes from Coulomb to Kerr-Taub-NUT
in Journal of High Energy Physics
Monteiro R
(2022)
NS-NS spacetimes from amplitudes
in Journal of High Energy Physics
Del Debbio L
(2020)
Notes on lattice observables for parton distributions: nongauge theories
in Journal of High Energy Physics
Bourjaily J
(2020)
All-mass n-gon integrals in n dimensions
in Journal of High Energy Physics
Abreu S
(2021)
The diagrammatic coaction beyond one loop
in Journal of High Energy Physics
Cristofoli A
(2023)
Large gauge effects and the structure of amplitudes
in Journal of High Energy Physics
Travaglini G
(2022)
The SAGEX review on scattering amplitudes*
in Journal of Physics A: Mathematical and Theoretical
Kosower D
(2022)
The SAGEX review on scattering amplitudes Chapter 14: Classical gravity from scattering amplitudes
in Journal of Physics A: Mathematical and Theoretical
Bernamonti A
(2020)
Aspects of the first law of complexity
in Journal of Physics A: Mathematical and Theoretical
Feng J
(2023)
The Forward Physics Facility at the High-Luminosity LHC
in Journal of Physics G: Nuclear and Particle Physics
Ball R
(2022)
The PDF4LHC21 combination of global PDF fits for the LHC Run III*
in Journal of Physics G: Nuclear and Particle Physics
Alexandrou C
(2021)
Quark masses using twisted-mass fermion gauge ensembles
in Physical Review D
Yoo J
(2022)
Proton decay matrix elements on the lattice at physical pion mass
in Physical Review D
Berera A
(2021)
Quantum coherence of photons to cosmological distances
in Physical Review D
Di Carlo M
(2022)
Relativistic, model-independent determination of electromagnetic finite-size effects beyond the pointlike approximation
in Physical Review D
Kordov Z
(2020)
Electromagnetic contribution to S - ? mixing using lattice QCD + QED
in Physical Review D
Falcioni G
(2021)
Climbing three-Reggeon ladders: Four-loop amplitudes in the high-energy limit in full color
in Physical Review D
Blum T
(2023)
Update of Euclidean windows of the hadronic vacuum polarization
in Physical Review D
Batelaan M
(2023)
Feynman-Hellmann approach to transition matrix elements and quasidegenerate energy states
in Physical Review D
Di Carlo M
(2021)
Unitarity bounds for semileptonic decays in lattice QCD
in Physical Review D
Abdul Khalek R
(2021)
Determination of unpolarized pion fragmentation functions using semi-inclusive deep-inelastic-scattering data
in Physical Review D
Kordov Z
(2021)
State mixing and masses of the p 0 , ? and ? ' mesons from n f = 1 + 1 + 1 lattice QCD + QED
in Physical Review D
Bennett E
(2023)
Symplectic lattice gauge theories in the grid framework: Approaching the conformal window
in Physical Review D
Beane S
(2021)
Charged multihadron systems in lattice QCD + QED
in Physical Review D
Cè M
(2022)
Photon emissivity of the quark-gluon plasma: A lattice QCD analysis of the transverse channel
in Physical Review D