Towards New Discoveries in Particle Physics and Cosmology

该奖项资助了马里兰州大学帕克分校的Kaughh Agashe、Zackaria Chacko、安森胡克和拉曼桑德拉姆教授的研究活动。它还包括NSF-BSF合作，马里兰州大学的Chacko和Sundrum教授以及以色列特拉维夫大学的Michael Geller教授。主要研究人员将开发和研究扩展粒子物理学和宇宙学标准模型的新理论，并考虑到三个主要目标。首先是提供有充分依据的理论模板来指导基础物理学实验。这些范围从欧洲核子研究中心的大型强子对撞机和未来的粒子对撞机能够创造异国情调的新粒子，以高精度的研究已知粒子的性质，如中微子，前线宇宙学，天体物理学和引力波探测宇宙的最早阶段及其神秘的“暗物质”的组成部分。第二个目标是进一步深入研究量子力学，相对论和引力的交叉理论，寻找新的基本原理。第三个目标是促进学生和博士后研究人员的教学，培训和学习，并与更广泛的社区分享研究的兴奋。自然的基本规律是所有自然科学的基础，因此，该项目的前沿研究及其成果的广泛传播将有利于国家利益和我们的现代文明。更技术上，主要研究人员将研究扭曲的额外维度范式的多个新方面（和它的AdS/CFT对偶粒子复合），包括早期宇宙相变和引力波信号，物质/反物质不对称，中微子质量产生和性质，通货膨胀，暗区动力学和对撞机现象。引力波宇宙学将被发展来探测早期宇宙的状态方程和热历史。一个战略，以检测在极化CMB的轴子弦将开发。将研究暗物质与暗辐射相互作用的新的可能结构，并将其应用于当前的宇宙学异常。将开发在原始不均匀性（如大型结构）上留下超重粒子（远远超出对撞机的范围）印记的新可能性。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值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 Kaustubh Agashe, Zackaria Chacko, Anson Hook and Raman Sundrum at the University of Maryland, College Park. It also includes a NSF-BSF collaboration, between Professors Chacko and Sundrum at the University of Maryland and Professor Michael Geller at Tel Aviv University in Israel. The principal investigators will develop and study new theories that extend the standard model of particle physics and cosmology, with three primary goals in mind. The first is to provide well-founded theoretical templates to guide experiments in fundamental physics. These range from the CERN Large Hadron Collider and future particle colliders capable of creating exotic new particles, to high-precision studies of the properties of known particles such as the neutrino, to frontline cosmological, astrophysical, and gravitational wave probes of the universe’s earliest phases and of its mysterious “dark matter” components. The second goal is to delve further into theory at the intersection of quantum mechanics, relativity and gravitation, in search of new fundamental principles. The third goal is to promote teaching, training and learning among students and postdoctoral researchers, and sharing the excitement of the research with the broader community. The fundamental laws of nature lie at the root of all the natural sciences, and therefore the cutting-edge research in this project and the broad dissemination of its findings will benefit the national interest and our modern civilization.More technically, the principal investigators will study multiple new aspects of the warped extra dimensions paradigm (and its AdS/CFT dual in terms of particle compositeness), including its early universe phase transition and gravitational wave signals, the matter/antimatter asymmetry, neutrino mass generation and properties, inflation, dark sector dynamics, and collider phenomenology. Gravitational wave cosmology will be developed to probe the early universe’s equation of state and thermal history. A strategy to detect axionic strings in the polarized CMB will be developed. New possible structures for dark matter interacting with dark radiation will be studied and applied to current cosmological anomalies. New possibilities for imprints of extremely heavy particles (far beyond collider reach) on primordial inhomogeneities, such as large scale structure, will be developed.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.