Beyond the Standard Model in Particle Physics and Cosmology

University Of Maryland, College Park, College Park MD

Investigators

Abstract

This award funds the research activities of Professors Kaustubh Agashe, Zacharia Chacko, S. James Gates,Jr. Rabindra N. Mohapatra and Raman Sundrum at the University of Maryland. The project deals with understanding the fundamental forces and matter in the universe. Our current understanding of them is based on the standard model, which has been extremely successful in explaining most known natural phenomena. There are however several aspects of the model that indicate that there is a lot of unknown physics beyond it waiting to be unearthed. The existence of masses for a tiny particle called neutrino that fills the universe and the existence of dark matter, the dominant form of matter in the universe, are but two examples which the standard model cannot explain. On a conceptual level, why the recently discovered Higgs boson weighs as much as it does, why is there more matter than antimatter in the universe, and why there are three kinds of building blocks of matter which are very similar, are some other examples that cry out for physics beyond the standard model for their understanding. Using the new funding, the investigators will continue their attempts to solve these problems, using approaches suggested by them and others, and propose ways to test them at the CERN Large Hadron Collider (LHC) as well as planned neutrino experiments at Fermilab. It is hoped that these studies will uncover new forces and new forms of matter which will revolutionize our thinking about the universe and its evolution. The researchers are recognized in the community for having made seminal contributions to some of the major approaches to address the problems mentioned : warped extra dimensions (known as "Randall-Sundrum models"), existence of new boson fermion symmetries (known as supergravity) and ways to break this symmetry (known as "gaugino- and anomaly mediated susy breaking"), twin Higgs theory as a way to understand the Higgs boson mass, grand unification of all forces and matter, left-right symmetry of all forces as a precursor to grand unification and seesaw mechanism for understanding why neutrino masses are so tiny. Together with their postdocs and students they want to continue their activities while at the same time paying attention to any new discoveries from LHC as well as other experiments