Beyond the Standard Model in Particle Physics and Cosmology

该奖项资助考斯图布·阿加什教授、扎卡里亚·查科教授、S·詹姆斯·盖茨教授的研究活动。马里兰州大学的拉宾德拉·N·莫哈帕特拉和拉曼·桑德鲁姆。该项目涉及理解宇宙中的基本力和物质。我们目前对它们的理解是基于标准模型，该模型在解释大多数已知的自然现象方面取得了极大的成功。然而，该模型的几个方面表明，在它之外还有许多未知的物理物质等待着挖掘出来。充斥宇宙的一种名为中微子的微小粒子的质量的存在，以及宇宙中物质的主要形式暗物质的存在，只是标准模型无法解释的两个例子。在概念层面上，为什么最近发现的希格斯玻色子和它的重量一样大，为什么宇宙中有比反物质更多的物质，为什么有三种非常相似的物质构件，这些都是其他一些超越标准模型理解物理学的例子。利用新的资金，研究人员将继续尝试解决这些问题，使用他们和其他人提出的方法，并提出在欧洲核子研究中心大型强子对撞机(LHC)以及费米实验室计划的中微子实验中测试这些问题的方法。人们希望这些研究将发现新的作用力和新的物质形式，它们将彻底改变我们对宇宙及其演化的看法。研究人员因在解决上述问题的一些主要方法上做出了开创性的贡献而在社会上得到认可：扭曲的额外维度(称为“兰德尔-桑德鲁姆模型”)，新的玻色子费米子对称性的存在(称为超引力)和打破这种对称性的方法(称为“加吉诺和反常介导的苏西破缺”)，孪生希格斯理论作为一种理解希格斯粒子质量的方法，所有力和物质的大统一，所有作用力的左右对称性是大统一的前兆，也是理解中微子质量如此之小的拉锯机制。与他们的博士后和学生一起，他们希望继续他们的活动，同时关注来自大型强子对撞机和其他实验的任何新发现

This award funds the research activities of Professors Kaustubh Agashe, Zacharia Chacko, S. James Gates,Jr. Rabindra N. Mohapatra and Raman Sundrum at the University of Maryland. The project deals with understanding the fundamental forces and matter in the universe. Our current understanding of them is based on the standard model, which has been extremely successful in explaining most known natural phenomena. There are however several aspects of the model that indicate that there is a lot of unknown physics beyond it waiting to be unearthed. The existence of masses for a tiny particle called neutrino that fills the universe and the existence of dark matter, the dominant form of matter in the universe, are but two examples which the standard model cannot explain. On a conceptual level, why the recently discovered Higgs boson weighs as much as it does, why is there more matter than antimatter in the universe, and why there are three kinds of building blocks of matter which are very similar, are some other examples that cry out for physics beyond the standard model for their understanding. Using the new funding, the investigators will continue their attempts to solve these problems, using approaches suggested by them and others, and propose ways to test them at the CERN Large Hadron Collider (LHC) as well as planned neutrino experiments at Fermilab. It is hoped that these studies will uncover new forces and new forms of matter which will revolutionize our thinking about the universe and its evolution.The researchers are recognized in the community for having made seminal contributions to some of the major approaches to address the problems mentioned : warped extra dimensions (known as "Randall-Sundrum models"), existence of new boson fermion symmetries (known as supergravity) and ways to break this symmetry (known as "gaugino- and anomaly mediated susy breaking"), twin Higgs theory as a way to understand the Higgs boson mass, grand unification of all forces and matter, left-right symmetry of all forces as a precursor to grand unification and seesaw mechanism for understanding why neutrino masses are so tiny. Together with their postdocs and students they want to continue their activities while at the same time paying attention to any new discoveries from LHC as well as other experiments