Searches for New Physics with Colliders and Cosmology

该奖项资助圣母大学安东尼奥·德尔加多、亚当·马丁和蔡宇新教授的研究活动。理论粒子物理学的目标是了解我们周围宇宙的基本组成部分。实现这一目标有两条途径。第一个是分析以最高能量碰撞在一起的质子的碰撞，目的是研究基本粒子及其在极短尺度上的相互作用。第二种是通过宇宙微波背景辐射-即来自宇宙演化非常早期的辐射-以及通过其他宇宙学信号来研究宇宙的历史。在这两个方向上，Delgado、Martin和Tsai教授将进行研究，使用各种技术为新物理的信号撒下广泛的网。因此，这项研究通过促进科学进步来阐明自然界的主要规律，从而促进了国家利益。这项工作还具有广泛的影响，因为它将指导未来的实验研究，并涉及与巴黎圣母院和欧洲粒子物理实验室(CERN)的实验者密切合作。德尔加多、马丁和蔡教授还将在本科生和研究生阶段教授物理，在物理研究生院暑期班授课，在世界各地组织研讨会和会议，并通过QuarkNet计划向国内和国际的高中教师和学生教授粒子物理。更严格地说，马丁教授将致力于提高基于场论的新现象的有效搜索，特别强调来自高阶项的不确定性。德尔加多教授将研究违反超对称性的R宇称的新信号。他还将研究超对称性中的暗物质模型建立，以及更一般的双希格斯双态模型。蔡教授将修改现有的宇宙学计算机代码，以研究暗光子和镜像双星希格斯模型如何受到当前和未来的宇宙学观测的约束。最后，Martin教授和Tsai教授将共同研究CMB中来自早期宇宙中产生的超重粒子对的“热点”信号。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This award funds the research activities of Professors Antonio Delgado, Adam Martin, and Yuhsin Tsai at the University of Notre Dame.The goal of theoretical particle physics is to understand the fundamental building blocks of the universe around us. There are two avenues towards this achieving this goal. The first is to analyze collisions of protons slammed together at the highest energies available, with the goal of investigating the elementary particles and their interactions at very short length scales. The second is to study the history of the universe through the cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation --- i.e., radiation from a very early epoch in the evolution of the universe --- as well as through other cosmological signals. Pursuing both of these directions, Professors Delgado, Martin, and Tsai will conduct research that casts a wide net for signals of new physics using a variety of techniques. As such, this research advances the national interest by promoting the progress of science towards illuminating the principal laws of nature. This work also has a broad impact in that it will guide future experimental searches and involves close collaboration with experimenters, both at Notre Dame and at CERN (the European Laboratory for Particle Physics). Professors Delgado, Martin, and Tsai will also teach physics at the undergraduate and graduate levels, lecture at graduate physics summer schools, organize workshops and conferences around the world, and teach particle physics to high school teachers and students through the QuarkNet program, both nationally and internationally.More technically, Professor Martin will work on improving effective field theory-based searches for new phenomena, with particular emphasis on the uncertainties from higher order terms. Professor Delgado will study novel signals from R-parity violating supersymmetry. He will also study Dark Matter model building in supersymmetry and more general two-Higgs-doublet models. Professor Tsai will adapt existing cosmology computer codes to study how dark photons and Mirror Twin Higgs models can be bounded by current and future cosmological observations. Finally, Professors Martin and Tsai will together study ‘hotspot' signals in the CMB from pairs of super-heavy particles created in the early universeThis 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.