String Theory, Particle Physics and Model Building

该奖项资助了纽约市立大学城市学院塞巴斯蒂安·佛朗哥教授的研究活动。我们目前对宇宙的理解的两大支柱，量子力学和广义相对论，是相互不相容的。弦理论调和了它们，将自然界中所有的基本相互作用，包括引力，统一在量子理论中。基础物理学正在经历一个在实验和理论前沿都取得非凡发展的时代。正在进行的实验正在探索自然界的基本结构，沿着许多互补的方向，从宇宙学到强度边界。大型强子对撞机（LHC）最近发现了希格斯玻色子，粒子物理学标准模型的最后一个缺失部分，并正在积极测试它的几个可能的扩展。 作为他的研究计划的一部分，佛朗哥教授将对弦理论模型和我们的世界之间的联系进行全面的调查。他还将研究标准模型之外的物理学的几种新的可能性，重点是具有弦理论中常见成分的模型，或者与传统场景完全不同的模型。 因此，拟议中的研究计划将有助于保持美国在弦现象学前沿的长期地位。这项建议还有一个影响更广泛的重要组成部分。其中一个突出的元素是“从对撞机到课堂”计划的创建，在该计划中，活跃的物理学家将向高中教师展示他们的研究。PI将积极吸引本科生和研究生以及博士后同事参与他的研究，培训他们理论物理的研究方法。他还计划对CCNY的本科研究项目进行关键改进，旨在开发高影响力的实践，从而实现深入的学习方法。最后，PI将继续并加强他正在进行的跨学科合作，将物理学和数学界聚集在一起。从技术上讲，这项提议的关键目标是：系统地推导标准模型的精确特征，例如它在局部IIB型弦理论结构中的味道结构以及与实验的比较;开发和实施新的算法，用于大规模计算机搜索这些模型;研究有利的场景，其中弦理论的特征可以导致可识别的实验印记;一个范围广泛的新的超光速破坏和调解方案及其对大型强子对撞机的影响，和研究弦紧化的全球方面及其在实验测量量的发病率的新工具的发展进行彻底的调查。

This award funds the research activities of Professor Sebastian Franco at the City College of the City University of New York.The two pillars of our current understanding of the universe, Quantum Mechanics and General Relativity, are mutually incompatible. String theory reconciles them, unifying all fundamental interactions in nature, including gravity, in a quantum theory. Fundamental physics is going through an era of exceptional developments, both at the experimental and theoretical fronts. Ongoing experiments are probing the basic structure of nature along a multitude of complementary directions, from the cosmological to the intensity frontiers. The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) has recently discovered the Higgs boson, the last missing piece of the Standard Model of particle physics, and is vigorously testing several of its possible extensions. As part of his proposed research, Professor Franco will undertake a comprehensive investigation of the connection between string-theory models and our world. He will also study several new possibilities for physics beyond the Standard Model, with an emphasis on models with ingredients that appear generically in string theory or with a radical departure from conventional scenarios. As such, the proposed research program will help preserve the United States' long-standing status at the cutting edge of string phenomenology. This proposal also has a significant broader-impact component. One of its salient elements is the creation of the "From the Collider to the Classroom" program, in which active physicists will present their research to high school teachers. The PI will actively engage undergraduate and graduate students as well as postdoctoral associates in his research, training them in research methods in theoretical physics. He also plans to introduce key improvements to the undergraduate research program at CCNY aimed at developing high-impact practices leading to deep approaches to learning. Finally, the PI will continue and strengthen his ongoing interdisciplinary collaborations bringing together the physics and mathematics communities.More technically, key objectives of this proposal are: a systematic derivation of precise features of the Standard Model, such as its flavor structure in local Type IIB string-theory constructions and comparison with experiments; the development and implementation of new algorithms for a large-scale computer search of these models; the study of favorable scenarios in which characteristic features of string theory can lead to recognizable imprints accessible to experiments; a thorough investigation of a wide range of new supersymmetry-breaking and mediation scenarios and their implications for the LHC, and the development of new tools for studying global aspects of string compactifications and their incidence in experimentally measureable quantities.