The Gravity of New Phenomena in Particle Physics

像大多数亚原子理论家一样，我的目标是理解自然的基本规律。我们目前最成功的理论是标准模型（与广义相对论一起），直到最近它才解释了所有的实验。它现在无法描述一些观测结果：中微子振荡的证据；宇宙学观测揭示了原始密度波动的存在；以及在宇宙学中发现了两种未知的引力来源——所谓的暗物质和暗能量。因为这些都表明标准模型是失败的，我们寻找它的替代品（它的发现将彻底改变我们对自然的理解）。现在，许多反对标准模型的证据都来自太空，这就是为什么宇宙学和万有引力一直是我最近关注的焦点。在过去，我提出了最简单成功的暗物质模型，以及研究暗能量和原始涨落起源的主要方法。这些模型的动机是简单性和认识到我们所看到的可能是更基本的东西的低能量极限（这对候选理论施加了“自然性”限制，特别是对暗能量）。除了继续这些方向，我还希望利用最近发现的引力波和高分辨率黑洞图像，看看它们是否包含标准模型消亡的迹象。这涉及到开发新的理论工具，因为他们探测的强引力状态不容易适用于标准的微扰方法。这些新工具包括用事件视界（物体最多以光速运动，只能沿一个方向运动的表面）探索引力场的不同方面。一种工具通过利用接近视界（相对于问题的其他尺度）带来的简单性来分类新的近视界现象。第二个工具——开放eft——探索晚期进化，在那里发生了有趣的现象（如黑洞信息丢失），但微扰方法通常也失败了。尽管如此，开放eft通过采用物理学（如光学）其他领域使用的类似工具来解决类似的后期预测问题，取得了进展。其中一些工具也有更广泛的用途：一门课探讨了非常小的物体（例如原子核）如何影响它们更大的周围环境（原子）。这项提议通过使用新工具来简化原子能级上核结构的计算来测试这些新工具。衍生出的一种可观测值与核性质无关（以及随之而来的大误差）。类似的工具也被用于简化重子数破坏的单极催化的计算。对加拿大来说，我的产品是人：基础物理的兴奋感吸引了最优秀的年轻人去学习解决数学问题的技能，然后他们可以（也确实）把这些技能带到经济的其他领域。

Like most subatomic theorists my objective is to understand the fundamental laws of nature. Our current most successful theory is the Standard Model (with General Relativity), which until recently accounted for all experiments. It now fails to describe a few observations: evidence for neutrino oscillations; for cosmological observations revealing the existence of primordial density fluctuations; and for the discovery in cosmology of two unknown sources of gravitation - the so-called dark matter and dark energy. Because these show that the Standard Model fails, we seek its replacement (whose discovery would revolutionize our understanding of nature). Much of the evidence against the Standard Model now comes from space, which is why cosmology and gravity have been my recent focus. In the past I proposed the simplest successful model for dark matter, and leading approaches to dark energy and for the origins of primordial fluctuations. These models were motivated both by simplicity and by the recognition that what we see is likely the low-energy limit of something more fundamental (which imposes 'naturalness' restrictions on candidate theories, particularly for dark energy). Besides continuing these directions I wish also to exploit the recent discovery of gravitational waves and high-resolution black-hole images to see whether they contain signs of the Standard Model's demise. This involves developing new theoretical tools, since the strong-gravity regime they probe does not easily lend itself to standard perturbative methods. These new tools involve exploring different aspects of gravitational fields with event horizons (surfaces through which objects can only travel in one direction if they at most move at the speed of light - as they must). One tool classifies new near-horizon phenomena by exploiting the simplicity that comes from proximity to the horizon (relative to a problem's other scales). A second tool - Open EFTs - explores late-time evolution, where interesting phenomena (like black-hole information loss) occur, but for which perturbative methods also generically fail. Open EFTs nonetheless make headway by adopting similar tools used elsewhere in physics (eg optics) to solve similar problems with late-time predictions. Some of these tools also are useful more widely: one class explores how very small objects (nuclei, for example) influence their much larger surroundings (atoms). This proposal tests the new tools by using them to simplify calculations of nuclear structure on atomic energy levels. A spinoff identifies observables that are independent of nuclear properties (and the large errors that come with them). Similar tools are also applied to simplify calculations of monopole catalysis of baryon-number violation. For Canada my product is people: The excitement of fundamental physics draws the finest young minds to learn mathematical problem-solving skills, which they then can (and do) bring to the rest of the economy.