Beyond the Standard Model: Searching for New Physics in Cosmology and Colliders

New York University, New York NY

Investigators

Abstract

This award funds the research activities of Professor Neal Weiner at New York University. A wide range of experimental efforts directed at testing physics at new frontiers are at or nearing maturity. These include experiments which hope to probe the nature of the mysterious "dark matter" which makes up most of the matter in the universe but which is not luminous and thus does not interact strongly with the kinds of more traditional matter out of which stars, planets, and we ourselves are composed. Along with this are new experimental efforts which aim at probing physics at ever-higher energies in an attempt to test and search for new very weakly interacting states of nature. The result of this activity has led us to a period in which our knowledge of many aspects of the natural world will be dramatically enlarged. Professor Weiner's research activities are aimed at making sense of this new data. He will engage in a broad theoretical study that can capitalize on the wealth of new emerging data, and which will help to chart some of the next experimental directions that might be pursued. As such, this research is critical for supporting the progress of basic science in the United States. More technically, Professor Weiner will attempt to quantify features of a variety of new models for particle physics beyond the Standard Model. Within the context of physics related to the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), he will explore more thoroughly and at higher precision the properties of Dirac gauginos. These particles appear in versions of supersymmetric theories and are some of the most challenging to probe experimentally. At the present time, a quantitative understanding of the Higgs mass in these theories is still lacking, and in pursuing this topic, Professor Weiner hopes to obtain precise predictions that might be confirmed or excluded at the LHC. Similarly, a variety of anomalies claimed in connection to dark matter remain unresolved, including a recent claim of excess X-ray emission at 3.5 keV from galaxies and galaxy clusters. While the most natural scenario for explaining this --- namely, a decaying relic particle --- seems highly constrained, explanations arising from collisional excitation of dark matter are still relatively unexplored. As part of this research, Professor Weiner will pursue these ideas more quantitatively, including re-analyzing the original data from which the claims were made in the context of collisional excitations. Furthermore, he will attempt to understand whether any new systems may help clarify the origin of this signal. Finally, Professor Weiner will endeavor to develop new scenarios that are testable within proposed experiments, but for which current analyses are sub-optimal. This will likely include extensions of searches for new resonances, or electromagnetic signals of dark matter. In doing so, Professor Weiner aims to leverage our existing investments in experimental physics in order to yield the maximal scientific output.