The physics of the standard model of the universe

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In the broadest sense my research focuses on understanding the fundamental physical nature, history, and future of the Universe.  It has long been known that, in the hot big bang model, the Universe once was in an extremely hot and dense state where high energy particle physics determined its evolution.  There is an important and intimate connection between the physics of the very small (high-energy particle theory and perhaps string theory) and the physics of the very large (cosmology) and development and pursuit of this connection is the central focus of my research.  By combining clues from laboratory experiments, cosmology and astrophysics we have already learned much about the fundamental physics that governs our Universe and I believe, right now, we are on the brink of discovering much more.  The standard model of particle physics (SMPP) and general relativity (GR) are the cornerstones of the standard cosmological model (SCM) that has emerged in recent years. Yet, these theories cannot account for the most puzzling and, in my opinion, interesting aspects of the SCM.  Cosmological evidence has forced us to adopt the paradigm that: (I) most of the matter in the Universe is an unknown form known as dark matter; (II) that the rate of expansion of the Universe is currently accelerating due to the presence of dark energy; and (III) some mechanism like inflation occurred in the distant past which solved the classical cosmological problems and seeded the fluctuations we now observe in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation and in the distribution of galaxies.  All three of these revelations point towards new, unexpected, or unconventional particle physics at their origin. We are now in an exciting era where observational cosmology is driving particle physics into new directions away from the SMPP.  The driving goal of my research is to work towards a better physical understanding of the physics of the SCM and in particular the phenomena of dark matter, dark energy, and inflation.