Particle Physics Theory at Royal Holloway and Sussex

这项提议的研究将苏塞克斯大学和皇家霍洛威大学的粒子理论小组联合起来，在三个大标题下寻找新的物理学：对撞机和低能现象学大型强子对撞机将质子加速到接近光速的速度，使它们的有效质量增加了7000倍。通过将这些粒子粉碎在一起，将会有新的发现，也会有新的物理理论有待检验。我们将致力于一项复杂的任务，将这些碰撞的碎片与理论家提出的新模型联系起来，以解释宇宙中一些最令人困惑的问题——质量的起源是什么？有量子引力理论吗？粒子天体物理学和宇宙学在过去十年中最活跃的研究领域可能是粒子物理学和宇宙学之间的界面。为了了解宇宙的历史，我们必须了解大爆炸最初时刻的物理定律，当时温度和粒子能量都很大。相反，通过今天对宇宙的详细观察，我们可以追溯到当时的条件，并推断出高能的物理定律。我们的研究将解决关于宇宙的四大问题：为什么物质比反物质多？什么是暗物质？有证据证明弦或弦理论存在吗？宇宙是如何加速膨胀的？基本力的理论现代理论物理学的主要问题之一是将物理定律外推到新的长度或能量尺度上。我们希望将我们的理解推向更极端的情况，比如大型强子对撞机中的粒子碰撞，或者非常早期的宇宙。我们的研究将发展我们的理论工具，并将基本粒子和引力的物理学外推到新的能量体系，以寻求在统一的框架中理解粒子和力。

The proposed research unites the particle theory groups at Sussex and Royal Holloway in the hunt for new physics under three broad headings: Collider and low-energy phenomenology The Large Hadron Collider boosts protons to velocities so close to that of light that their effective mass grows by a factor of 7000. By smashing these particles together there are new discoveries to be made, and new theories of physics to test. We will work on the complex task of relating the debris of these collisions to the new models put forward by theorists to explain some of the most puzzling questions of the universe - what is the origin of mass? and is there a quantum theory of gravity? Particle astrophysics and cosmology Perhaps the most active area of research in the past decade has been at the interface between particle physics and cosmology. In order to understand the history of the universe we must understand physical laws in the first moments of the Big Bang, when temperatures and particle energies were huge. Conversely, by detailed observations of the universe today we can trace back the conditions and make deductions about physical laws at high energies. Our research will tackle four big questions about the universe: why is there more matter than antimatter? what is dark matter? is there any evidence out there for strings or string theory? and how does the expansion of the universe accelerate? Theories of fundamental forces One of the major problems in modern theoretical physics is the extrapolation of physical laws to new length or energy scales. We wish to push our understanding to ever more extreme situations such the collisions of particles in the Large Hadron Collider, or the very early universe. Our research will develop our theoretical tools and extrapolate the physics of elementary particles and gravity to new regimes of energy, in the quest to understand particles and forces in a unified framework.