Gravity, cosmology and collider physics

该奖项是根据2009年美国复苏和再投资法案（公法111-5）资助的。研究支配宇宙演化的基础物理学是现代物理学中最令人兴奋的研究领域之一。在过去的二十年里，技术的进步使大量的宇宙学观测成为可能，这些观测强烈地限制了宇宙的性质，并使宇宙学的标准模型的公式与粒子物理学的标准模型的类比成为可能。与此同时，直接的宇宙学观测几乎总是由粒子加速器、地面探测器和宇宙射线天文台的数据来补充。按照这些思路，拟议的项目将有两个方面。第一个方面与基础理论宇宙学有关，并设想了一个协调一致的研究努力，以理解和解释暗能量之谜。解决这一问题的方法将基于宇宙中后期相变的思想，其中负责相变的场携带规范电荷。这样的模型很有可能在不久的将来的对撞机实验中得到验证。该项目的第二个方面将与具有大额外尺寸的模型紧密相连，这些模型可以容纳tev尺度的重力。也许这些模型最有趣和吸引人的特征是在未来的对撞机实验中产生迷你黑洞的可能性。该项目设想为大型强子对撞机建造一个黑洞事件发生器，它将在确认或排除这类模型方面发挥重要作用。这个事件生成器（暂定名为BlackMax）将集成到ATLAS蒙特卡洛程序Herwig和Pythia中。提议的活动的更广泛的影响是，它们将导致对暗能量和标准模型之间可能联系的更好理解。这将进一步把宇宙学观测与基础物理学联系起来。这个项目将为本科生和研究生提供一个极好的训练基地。为了更广泛的物理社区的利益，开发的数值工具以及黑洞事件生成器本身将被公开。科学成果将在国内和国际会议和讲习班上发表。PI也是“佩特尼察科学中心”的客座讲师，这是一个天才高中生的中心。

This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5). The study of the fundamental physics that governs evolution of our universe is one of the most exciting research fields in modern physics. In the last two decades, technological advances have made possible a host of cosmological observations strongly constraining the properties of the universe and making possible the formulation of the Standard Model of cosmology in analogy with the Standard Model of particle physics. At the same time, direct cosmological observations are almost always complemented by data from particle accelerators, earth-based detectors and cosmic ray observatories.Along these lines, the proposed project will have two aspects. The first aspect is related to fundamental theoretical cosmology and envisions a concerted research effort towards understanding and explaining the puzzle of dark energy. The approach to this problem that will be explored is based on the idea of the late time phase transitions in the universe, where the field responsible for the phase transition carries gauge charges. Such models have a very good chance to be tested in near future collider experiments. The second aspect of the project will be tightly connected to models with large extra dimensions that can accommodate a TeV-scale gravity. Probably the most interesting and intriguing feature of these models is the possibility of production of mini black holes in future collider experiments. The project envisions building a black hole event generator for the LHC which will play an important role in confirming or excluding this class of models. This event generator (tentatively called BlackMax) will be integrated into the ATLAS Monte Carlo programs Herwig and Pythia.. The broader impact of the proposed activities is that they will lead to an improved understanding of the possible connection between dark energy and the Standard Model. This would further link cosmological observations with fundamental physics. This project will provide an excellent training ground for students at both the undergraduate and graduate level. Developed numerical tools as well as the black hole event generator itself will be made public for the benefit of a wider physics community. Scientific results will presented at national and international conferences and workshops. The PI is also a guest Lecturer at "Petnica Science Center" which is a center for gifted high school students.