Interactions of the Higgs particle with nucleons, dark matter, and gravitons

希格斯粒子在自然界中扮演着非常特殊的角色，因为宇宙中充满了希格斯粒子的凝聚体。其他已知的粒子，例如电子，与希格斯粒子的这种凝聚体相互作用，就会给其他粒子带来质量。没有质量，所有的粒子都会以光速运动，不能结合在一起形成恒星、行星或我们身体那样的结构。因此，希格斯粒子在解释我们观察到的宇宙方面扮演着重要的角色。通过在大型强子对撞机(LHC)上发现希格斯粒子，人们很好地了解和验证了希格斯粒子与电子等已知基本粒子的相互作用。这一成功得益于加拿大在大型强子对撞机上操作ATLAS探测器的合作伙伴关系中的重要贡献。然而，除了与电子或夸克等已知基本粒子的相互作用外，希格斯粒子还可能在自然界中扮演另一个特殊的角色，作为构成星系大部分质量的暗物质与我们可以在实验室观察和操纵的“普通”物质之间的信使。无论是在大型强子对撞机上的对撞机搜索，还是在SNOLAB的直接探测实验中，加拿大也走在了暗物质实验的前沿。从理论上讲，我对希格斯粒子及其在暗物质搜索实验中可能扮演的角色特别感兴趣。希格斯粒子有两种相互作用，人们对它们的了解比它与已知基本粒子的相互作用要少得多，如果希格斯粒子是暗物质的信使，那么这些不被很好理解的相互作用在暗物质搜索中扮演着重要的角色。这两个相互作用是：1.希格斯粒子与原子核的相互作用；2.希格斯粒子与暗物质粒子的相互作用。希格斯粒子的这两种相互作用对于将暗物质理论与暗物质搜索实验联系起来非常重要。因此，我在未来五年的研究计划将专注于更新和扩展这些相互作用的理论，希望在对撞机实验和直接搜索实验中将希格斯粒子用作暗物质的探测器。

The Higgs particle plays a very special role in nature, because the universe is filled with a condensate of Higgs particles. Interactions of other known particles, e.g. electrons, with this condensate of Higgs particles gives mass to the other particles. Without mass, all particles would move at light speed and could not bind together to form structures like stars, planets, or our bodies. The Higgs particle therefore plays an important role in explaining the universe that we observe. The interactions of the Higgs particle with the known fundamental particles like electrons are well understood and verified through the discovery of the Higgs particle at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). This success had an important Canadian contribution through Canada's partnership in the collaboration which operates the ATLAS detector at the LHC. However, besides its interactions with the known fundamental particles like electrons or quarks, the Higgs particle may also play another special role in nature as a messenger between the dark matter that makes up most of the mass in galaxies, and the "ordinary" matter that we can observe and manipulate in laboratories. Canada is also at the forefront of experimental searches for dark matter, either through collider based searches at the LHC, or through direct detection experiments at SNOLAB. I am particularly interested in the Higgs particle and its possible role in dark matter search experiments from a theoretical perspective. There are two kinds of interactions of the Higgs particle which are much less understood than its interactions with the known elementary particles, and those not well understood interactions play an important role for dark matter searches if the Higgs particle is the messenger to dark matter. Those two interactions are 1. the interaction of Higgs particles with atomic nuclei, and 2. the interactions of Higgs particles with dark matter particles. Both kinds of interactions of Higgs particles are important to relate dark matter theory to dark matter search experiments. My research program during the next five years will therefore focus on updating and extending theories of these interactions, in the hope to use the Higgs particle as a probe for dark matter both in collider experiments and in direct search experiments.