Experimental Studies of Fundamental Symmetries

Suny At Stony Brook, Stony Brook NY

Investigators

Abstract

The intellectual merit resulting from the proposed research of the Stony Brook NSF supported particle physics group, Experimental Studies of Fundamental Symmetries, will be the provision of new understanding of underlying causes for the breaking of the symmetry in the fundamental forces of nature. The symmetry between the electromagnetic and weak forces is observed to occur above the 100 GeV scale, but is broken at low energy. The Standard Model (SM) of fundamental interactions and constituents of matter posits the Higgs mechanism, resulting in an observable new particle (the Higgs boson), which induces the symmetry breaking, and gives mass to all observed quarks, leptons and gauge bosons. Though logically consistent, this mechanism is widely believed to be an incomplete and a probably flawed explanation. New phenomena are likely to exist which could point the way to further unification of forces and identify a candidate for the dark matter in the universe. New experimental data are essential to discover how Nature has chosen to extend the SM. These questions will be explored in two experimental programs, one at the ATLAS experiment at the CERN and the other being DØ research at the Fermilab Tevatron. The broader impact of the program touches several areas. The group will develop improved training programs for high school physics teachers, support the Mariachi Project that installs detectors to sense high energy cosmic ray showers in high school classrooms across the region, allowing students to collaborate through a computer grid in measuring their properties and to learn experimental skills, and to continue to give talks on physics research, accelerators and technological spinoffs to general audiences.