Particles and Strings in the Evolving Universe

该奖项资助了加州大学伯克利分校伯克利理论物理中心的peter Horava、Mina Aganagic、Raphael Bousso和Yasunori Nomura教授的研究活动。在21世纪的第一个十年里，我们见证了关于宇宙起源、结构和未来命运的基本问题的显著融合。现在，在第二个十年的中期，我们经历了基本理论问题(宇宙是由什么组成的？什么是物质、能量、空间和时间？（等），这些实验数据现在已经可以在实验粒子物理学、观测宇宙学和天体物理学中获得。这些实验结果反过来又对理论前沿的显著发展提出了挑战。该奖项的合作pi将在粒子物理学、量子引力、宇宙学和弦理论的十字路口进行基础理论研究，面对超越标准模型的实验挑战，多元宇宙的思想，弦理论和凝聚态物理的界面，空间和时间的本质，以及拓扑弦的数学含义。因此，该领域的研究通过促进科学在其最基本的方向之一的进步来促进国家利益：发现和理解新的物理定律。这项研究的更广泛的影响包括培养学生和博士后，他们将成为美国和世界的下一代科学家。本研究中涉及的基本问题引起了公众的极大兴趣，合作项目负责人将继续向公众宣传基础科学的重要性和兴奋性。更具体地说，Mina Aganagic将专注于弦理论和规范理论与纯数学的相互作用。她将研究精细的拓扑弦，精细的chen - simons理论和m理论。Raphael Bousso将致力于从多元宇宙中提取预测，以及几何、全息和信息的相互联系，就像最近在黑洞“防火墙”难题中结晶出来的那样。他将进一步研究弦景观和全息熵界。彼得·霍拉瓦将研究量子引力，特别是在被称为“霍拉瓦-利夫希茨引力”的背景下及其广泛的应用，包括粒子现象学和宇宙学中的自然性难题，以及对凝聚态物理学的影响。他将把非平衡场论的方法应用于量子引力和弦。Yasunori Nomura将研究与最近和即将进行的实验相关的想法，例如大型强子对撞机，重点是超对称破缺及其调解，暗物质的起源和本质，以及对tev尺度物理的多重宇宙含义的概念性理解。所有四个合作项目将寻求意想不到的新机会，在理论粒子物理相关的所有领域进行变革性的跨学科研究。

This award funds the research activities of Professors Petr Horava, Mina Aganagic, Raphael Bousso and Yasunori Nomura at Berkeley Center for Theoretical Physics, University of California, Berkeley. In the first decade of the 21st century, we witnessed a remarkable convergence of the fundamental questions about the origin, structure and the future fate of our Universe. Now, in the middle of the second decade, we experience the exciting confrontation of the fundamental theoretical questions (what is the Universe made of? what are matter, energy, space and time?, etc.) with the experimental data which are now becoming available in experimental particle physics, observational cosmology and astrophysics. These experimental findings are in turn challenging the remarkable developments on the theoretical front. The co-PIs of this award will perform fundamental theoretical research at these crossroads of particle physics, quantum gravity, cosmology and string theory, confronting the experimental challenges from beyond the Standard Model, the ideas of the multiverse, the interface of string theory and condensed-matter physics, the nature of space and time, and the mathematical implications of topological strings. Research in this area thus advances the national interest by promoting the progress of science in one of its most fundamental directions: the discovery and understanding of new physical law. The significant broader impacts of this research include the training of students and postdocs who become the next generation of scientists in the nation and the world. The fundamental questions addressed in this research are of deep interest to the general public, and the co-PIs will continue promoting the importance and excitement of fundamental science to the general public.More specifically, Mina Aganagic will focus on the interplay of string theory and gauge theories with pure mathematics. She will study the refined topological string, the refined Chern-Simons theory and M-theory. Raphael Bousso will work on extracting predictions from the multiverse, and the interconnections of geometry, holography and information, as recently crystallized in the black-hole "firewall" conundrum. He will further study the string landscape and the holographic entropy bounds. Petr Horava will study quantum gravity, especially in the context known as "Horava-Lifshitz gravity" and its broad applications, including the puzzles of naturalness in particle phenomenology and cosmology, and implications to condensed-matter physics. He will apply methods of nonequilibrium field theory to quantum gravity and strings. Yasunori Nomura will work on ideas relevant to the recent and upcoming experiments, such as the LHC, with emphasis on supersymmetry breaking and its mediation, the origin and nature of dark matter, and the conceptual understanding of the implications of the multiverse for the TeV-scale physics. All four co-PIs will seek unexpected new opportunities for transformative interdisciplinary research in all areas related to theoretical particle physics.