Electroweak Symmetry Breaking and Physics Beyond the Standard Model

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This award funds the research activities of Professors R. Sekhar Chivukula and Elizabeth H. Simmons at Michigan State University.The research funded under this grant focuses on uncovering the origins of the masses of the elementary subatomic particles. The next three years will coincide with the 13-TeV high-energy run of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN, which will reveal the properties of the newly discovered 126-GeV "Higgs" boson, perform detailed studies of the top quark (the heaviest elementary particle known), and investigate the nature of matter down to the smallest distance scales ever probed. In their research, Professors Chivukula and Simmons will perform theoretical investigations to model the behavior of matter at these short distance scales and predict new phenomena that could be observed at the LHC. This research is in the national interest because it will promote the progress of science in helping to elucidate the fundamental laws governing our universe and deepen our knowledge of the subatomic realm. The proposed project also has several broader impacts. Professors Chivukula and Simmons are leaders in campus and national efforts to improve students' learning and persistence in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics), especially first-generation students and those from under-represented populations. The PIs will also involve graduate students and postdocs in their research, providing training to junior physicists in research methods and professional preparation to become independent scientists. Finally, the PIs will continue presenting the results of their research in outreach events focused on students from groups underrepresented in science, in order to engage the next generation of scientists.More technically, Professors Chivukula and Simmons will investigate how electroweak symmetry breaking and the origins of particle masses are impacted by relationships between the Higgs, top quark, and QCD sectors of theories beyond the Standard Model. The PIs will construct and study models in which the Higgs is composite, including those where the top plays a special role in electroweak symmetry breaking and may also be composite. They will derive constraints on these theories from flavor physics and precision electroweak data, emphasizing the phenomenological consequences of the models for the new scalar and other states that may appear at the LHC and future colliders. Professors Chivukula and Simmons will also study models of an extended color sector featuring new colored vector, scalar, or fermion states. The high-energy LHC will dramatically extend our experimental reach for new colored states, and the PIs will systematically investigate how to determine the properties of such a state upon discovery.