Particle Physics, Gravity and Cosmology

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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.