Particle Physics and Cosmology beyond the Standard Model

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The discovery of the last missing piece of the Standard Model (SM), the Higgs boson, is a momentous achievement for subatomic physics. This discovery refocusses our field toward searches for physics beyond the Standard Model (BSM). Despite its astounding success, the SM is not the final theory of the subatomic world, as it leaves unexplained the origin of neutrino masses and dark matter, and faces conceptual difficulties with the stability of electroweak scale. I am proposing theoretical research program in subatomic physics that aims at finding the most sensitive way of testing SM and searching for BSM at all recognized frontiers of fundamental physics: energy, intensity, precision, cosmology and dark matter physics. My efforts at the energy frontier will be focused on the Higgs boson physics, and its BSM modifications, as well as on the SM with extended gauge structures. This part of the proposal directly relates to the ATLAS Canada research program. At the intensity frontier I plan to intensify the studies of BSM via particle production in neutrino scattering, as well as continue my research program on light (GeV and sub-GeV) BSM physics. Significant attention will be paid to the problem of detection of light dark matter, especially to the method pioneered by my group and collaborators: pair production of light states followed by their detection in the large volume neutrino detectors. The precision frontier is featured in my proposal through theoretical studies of the properties of the muons (including a search for resolution to some famous discrepancies between theory and experiment). I plan to develop concepts for new experiments that will further test the muon-electron universality. At cosmology and dark matter frontier, I propose to study consequences of very light and very weakly coupled fields, expanding the range from axions to dark photons, and to other possible light states. The question of direct detection of such light states in the underground experiments, such as those hosted by SNOLAB, will be addressed. Finally, I will continue my investigations into gravitational theories with modified Lorentz invariance, as a possible pathway to the quantum theory of gravity. The outcome of my research will be beneficial to Canadian science: a large number of HQP will be trained, and new possible directions for subatomic physics research possibly uncovered.