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

这一奖项资助了纽约大学尼尔·韦纳教授的研究活动。旨在测试新领域物理学的广泛实验工作正在或接近成熟。这些实验包括希望探索神秘的“暗物质”的性质，这种物质构成了宇宙中的大部分物质，但它并不发光，因此不会与恒星、行星和我们自己组成的更传统的物质发生强烈的相互作用。随之而来的是新的实验努力，旨在以越来越高的能量探测物理，试图测试和寻找新的、非常弱的相互作用的自然状态。这一活动的结果将我们带入了一个时期，在这个时期，我们对自然界许多方面的知识将得到极大的扩大。韦纳教授的研究活动旨在理解这些新数据。他将从事一项广泛的理论研究，以利用新出现的数据的财富，这将有助于绘制一些可能追求的下一步实验方向。因此，这项研究对支持美国基础科学的进步至关重要。更多的技术上，韦纳教授将尝试量化各种新的粒子物理模型的特征，而不是标准模型。在与大型强子对撞机(LHC)相关的物理学背景下，他将更彻底、更精确地探索狄拉克加吉诺斯的性质。这些粒子出现在超对称理论的版本中，是最具挑战性的实验探测粒子之一。目前，这些理论中对希格斯质量的定量理解仍然缺乏，在追寻这一主题的过程中，韦纳教授希望获得可能在大型强子对撞机上被证实或排除的准确预测。同样，声称与暗物质有关的各种反常现象仍未解决，包括最近声称的星系和星系团发出的3.5keV超额X射线辐射。虽然解释这一现象的最自然的情景-即一个衰变的遗迹粒子-似乎受到高度限制，但来自暗物质碰撞激发的解释仍然相对未被探索。作为这项研究的一部分，韦纳教授将更定量地追求这些想法，包括重新分析在碰撞激发的背景下提出这些主张的原始数据。此外，他将试图了解是否有任何新的系统可能有助于澄清这一信号的来源。最后，韦纳教授将努力开发新的场景，这些场景可以在拟议的实验中进行测试，但目前的分析对于这些场景来说并不是最优的。这可能包括扩大对新共振或暗物质电磁信号的搜索。通过这样做，韦纳教授的目标是利用我们在实验物理方面的现有投资，以产生最大的科学产出。

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.