CAREER: Exploring Hidden Sectors

New York University, New York NY

Investigators

Abstract

This CAREER award funds the research activities of Professor Joshua Ruderman at New York University. Significant evidence suggests that most of the matter in our Universe is composed of an unknown source known as "dark matter". Experiments conducted over the next few years will make dramatic progress testing the extent to which dark matter is a particle that interacts with ordinary matter. Meanwhile, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is exploring the highest energies ever probed. The LHC recently discovered a remarkable new particle, the Higgs boson, and is now studying the properties of this new particle. The LHC may also discover additional new particles as well. Against this backdrop, Professor Ruderman will pursue an original program of research and education concentrating on the origins of dark matter and the Higgs. He will study the exciting possibility that there exist new hidden sectors of particles which have thus far escaped experimental detection because they are very weakly interacting with ordinary particles. He will explore new models in which dark matter is a hidden-sector particle, or in which the Higgs boson interacts with hidden-sector particles. In order to help in spreading physics to a broad audience, Professor Ruderman will also establish a competitive "Physics in Media Travel Award". He will partner with NYU's Tisch School of the Arts to send film students to visit physics experiments that will appear in their movies. He will also partner with NYU's Science, Health and Environmental Reporting Program (SHERP) to send science journalism students to visit physics experiments which will be featured in their stories. Resulting films will be screened at local high schools, and resulting stories will be disseminated online in various journalism venues. More specifically, Professor Ruderman will explore novel cosmologies for hidden-sector dark matter in which the annihilation rate is exponentially suppressed, predicting dark matter exponentially lighter than the TeV scale. This exponential suppression occurs when dark matter annihilates into heavier states, or is in equilibrium with heavier particles that are annihilating. Professor Ruderman will develop new observational tests for light dark matter, including searches for UV and soft X-ray photons emitted by dark-matter decays or annihilations. Professor Ruderman will also explore the interplay of hidden sectors with Higgs physics. He will develop novel models with a fine-tuned Higgs mass and light hidden-sector scalars that interact with the Higgs. He will also explore supersymmetric models with a natural Higgs mass in which stops are light and abundantly produced at the LHC but nevertheless hidden behind top-quark backgrounds.