RUI: Neutrino, Collider, and Dark Matter Phenomenology

该RUI奖资助James B教授的研究活动。作者声明：Joel W.步行者在萨姆休斯顿州立大学。在他们的研究中，登特教授和步行者致力于建立桥梁，将理论物理学的进步与中微子、对撞机和暗物质物理学领域的实验结果联系起来。 中微子是在恒星环境中通过宇宙辐射和核衰变过程产生的快速移动的轻粒子，但它们的相互作用非常弱，以至于它们的许多性质仍然是神秘的。 在对撞机上，特别是现在的大型强子对撞机上，熟悉的粒子以足够的凶猛撞击来重现早期宇宙的条件。 通过其引力效应，暗物质被认为代表了宇宙能量的四分之一，但我们从未直接观察过构成暗物质的粒子。 将这些努力联系起来是为了更好地理解物质的基本组成部分及其相互作用。 因此，这一领域的研究通过促进基础科学的进步来促进国家利益。 登特教授和步行者教授将开发新的物理模型，提出改进的搜索策略，贡献软件工具，并解释新的观测所施加的约束。通过对萨姆休斯顿州立大学本科研究生的密切监督，实现了更广泛的影响，萨姆休斯顿州立大学是一所主要为本科生服务的机构，为多样化的学生群体提供服务。 教授登特和步行者致力于提供一个环境，通过参加期刊出版物和会议演示，并通过为毕业生在主要研究型大学的博士课程中茁壮成长奠定基础，培养学生的分析，数值和创造性技能。更具体地说，中微子-核相干弹性散射过程（2017年首次观测到）将被用来限制标准模型之外的物理学，包括由大量的无菌中微子引起的短基线振荡，以及在光介质和有效场论背景下的非标准相互作用。 为了支持这些目标，教授登特和步行者担任理论顾问与米切尔研究所中微子实验在反应堆（MINER）合作，贡献分析和解释。 在大型强子对撞机上，由于超越标准模型的新物理学还没有以明显的方式显现出来，社区必须将注意力转移到可能在运动学上隐藏的过程，需要大量统计数据来区分，或者本质上是罕见的。 该提案通过直接分析和贡献公共软件和算法工具，包括开发一种新的标度不变射流聚类算法，推进了全球范围内的努力。 为了辨别暗物质的性质，登特教授和步行者教授将研究当前和未来直接探测暗物质特性的能力，如质量，自旋和非引力相互作用，包括不可约中微子背景的影响。 这项研究还将扩展到更一般的暗区框架，包括各种各样的实验，旨在寻找这种粒子，特别是在亚GeV的质量范围。这个奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并已被认为是值得通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估的支持。

This RUI award funds the research activities of Professors James B. Dent and Joel W. Walker at Sam Houston State University.In their research, Professors Dent and Walker work to build bridges that connect advances in theoretical physics to experimental results in the areas of neutrino, collider, and dark-matter physics. Neutrinos are light, fast-moving particles produced in stellar environment via cosmic radiation and in nuclear decay processes, but they interact so weakly that many of their properties remain mysterious. At colliders, and especially now at the Large Hadron Collider, familiar particles impact with sufficient ferocity to recreate conditions of the early universe. Through its gravitational effects, dark matter is known to represent a quarter of the energy of the universe, but we have never directly observed the particle or particles of which this dark matter is made. Connecting each of these efforts is a desire to better understand the fundamental building blocks of matter and their interactions. Thus, research in this area advances the national interest by fostering the progress of basic science. Professors Dent and Walker will develop new physical models, propose improved search strategies, contribute software tools, and interpret constraints imposed by new observations. Significant broader impacts are realized through the close supervision of undergraduate research students at Sam Houston State University, a primarily undergraduate institution that serves a diverse student population. Professors Dent and Walker are dedicated to providing an environment that develops the analytical, numerical, and creative skills of their students through participation in journal publications and conference presentations and by creating a foundation for graduates to thrive in doctoral programs at major research universities.More specifically, the process of coherent elastic neutrino-nucleus scattering (observed for the first time in 2017) will be used to place limits on physics beyond the Standard Model, including short-baseline oscillations induced by a massive sterile neutrino, and on non-standard interactions in the light-mediator and effective field theory contexts. In support of these goals, Professors Dent and Walker serve as theory advisors with the Mitchell Institute Neutrino Experiment at Reactor (MINER) collaboration, contributing analysis and interpretation. At the Large Hadron Collider, since new physics beyond the Standard Model is not yet manifest in obvious ways, the community must shift attention to processes which may be kinematically concealed, which require large statistics for discrimination, or which are intrinsically rare. This proposal advances that worldwide effort via direct analysis and by contributing public software and algorithmic tools, including the development of a new scale-invariant jet-clustering algorithm. Toward the goal of discerning the nature of dark matter, Professors Dent and Walker will investigate the capacity for current and future attempts at direct detection to characterize dark-matter properties such as mass, spin, and non-gravitational interactions, including the effects of an irreducible neutrino background. This study will also extend to more general dark-sector frameworks, including the wide variety of experiments designed to search for such particles, especially in the sub-GeV mass range.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.