Theoretical Particle Physics

Cornell University, Ithaca NY

Investigators

Abstract

In this five-year project the investigators propose to study the currently most important and exciting topics from a variety of fields within high-energy theory. In the field of Standard Model physics, The PI's proposes to use lattice simulations to find theoretical predictions for B and D meson physics observables at a few percent levels, some of which will be measured soon with comparable accuracy at CLEO-c. They plan to use the recently developed soft-collinear effective theory and QCD factorization to study processes of great importance in heavy-flavor phenomenology. Ultimately, both of these studies should lead us to a more precise determination of the fundamental mixing parameters in the quark sector. In the area of physics beyond the Standard Model, they propose to study theories with extra dimensions, with particular emphasis on applications to possible new mechanisms for electroweak symmetry breaking, perhaps the most pressing issue in particle physics today. They also plan to study the flavor aspects of various new models of electroweak symmetry breaking. The PIs plan to study topics on the interface of particle physics and cosmology. In particular, they will study the consequences of brane inflation both from string theory and an effective theory point of view. On the more formal side, there is also proposed a study of low-dimensional quantum field theories, in particular limit cycle properties of the renormalization group.