Particle Physics, Gravity and Cosmology

该奖项资助了马萨诸塞大学阿默斯特分校的约翰·多诺霍、本·海登瑞克和洛伦佐·索尔博教授的研究活动。我们这个时代的关键挑战之一是理解量子力学如何与重力相结合，并找出如何测试这种结合。这笔拨款用于研究，这将帮助我们理解这种联系并对其进行测试。多诺霍教授和海登瑞克教授在理解量子物理和引力方面有各自的研究项目。索尔博教授研究了这些观念和其他观念如何在宇宙历史中得以体现。预计该项目还将产生更广泛的重要影响。多诺霍教授和索尔博教授正在准备一篇关于量子场论主题的介绍性文本，量子场论是粒子物理学的语言。本书将由普林斯顿大学出版社出版。对研究生研究人员的指导也是这项研究的一个关键组成部分。更多的技术上，多诺霍教授将继续他的二次方引力的研究，其中的基本理论包含曲率平方因子。海登瑞克教授将通过沼泽计划研究量子引力，寻找对引力终极理论的明确限制。最后，索尔博教授将探索通货膨胀现象学的许多方面，同时保持他与激光干涉测量空间天线(LISA)实验计划的合作。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 John Donoghue, Ben Heidenreich, and Lorenzo Sorbo at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.One of the crucial challenges of our time is to understand how quantum mechanics fits together with gravity, and to figure out how to test this combination. This grant funds research which will both help us understand this connection and test it. Professors Donoghue and Heidenreich have separate research programs to understand quantum physics and gravity. Professor Sorbo studies how these ideas and others can be manifest in the history of the universe. This project is also envisioned to have important broader impacts. Professors Donoghue and Sorbo are preparing an introductory text on the subject of quantum field theory, which is the language of particle physics. This text will be published by Princeton University Press. Mentoring of graduate student researchers is also a key component of this research.More technically, Professor Donoghue will continue his study of Quadratic Gravity, in which the fundamental theory contains factors of the curvature-squared. Professor Heidenreich will investigate quantum gravity through the swampland program, looking for well-defined constraints on the ultimate theory of gravity. Finally, Professor Sorbo will explore many aspects of inflationary phenomenology while maintaining his collaboration with the Laser Interferometry Space Antenna (LISA) experimental program.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.