Light Fields and Their Role in Particle Physics

该奖项资助了马里兰大学安森·胡克教授的研究活动。这个项目将在最小尺度上推进我们对自然的基本物理规律的认识。随着希格斯玻色子的发现，粒子物理学的标准模型于2012年完成，但同时也暴露了一个巨大的微调问题，即电弱层次问题。PI的小组将研究解决这个问题的理论，并探索其实验意义。电弱层次问题的许多解决方案的一个共同特征是存在比任何其他已知粒子都轻的新基本粒子。PI将研究如何使用新的令人兴奋的量子有限实验以及天体物理系统来探测这些新粒子。这一建议通过发现和理解自然界最小的组成部分来促进基础科学的进步，从而促进了国家利益。该项目还将指导研究生和博士后的研究方法，并帮助高中生参加当地的物理竞赛。该项目将探索和改进近年来提出的层级问题的解决方案。PI将展示非线性实现的离散对称如何为标量质量提供指数保护，并找到构建利用这一惊人特征的模型所需的指导规则。首先，他将把阿贝尔离散对称的结果推广到非阿贝尔离散对称。非阿贝尔离散对称在它们的一些相互作用中具有偶然对称性，希格斯玻色子可以嵌入其中，将指数保护扩展到希格斯玻色子。在宇宙学方面，他将研究极光矢量玻色子的产生机制。利用原始磁场存在下的绝热转换，可以将不对准的轴子转化为矢量玻色子。这种技术可以用来获得矢量暗物质或减少轴子的丰度。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This award funds the research activities of Professor Anson Hook at the University of Maryland. This project will advance our knowledge of the fundamental rules of physics underlying nature at the smallest scales. The standard model of particle physics was completed in 2012 with the discovery of the Higgs boson but at the same time made manifest a huge fine tuning problem known as the Electroweak Hierarchy problem. The PI's group will study theories that solve this problem and will explore their experimental implications. A common feature of many of the solutions to the Electroweak Hierarchy problem is the presence of new fundamental particles lighter than any of the other known particles. The PI will work through how new exciting quantum limited experiments as well as astrophysical systems can be used to detect these new particles. This proposal advances the national interest by promoting the progress of fundamental science by discovering and understanding the smallest building blocks of nature. The project will also mentor graduate students and postdocs on research methods as well as helping high school students at local physics competitions.The project will explore and improve upon the solutions to the Hierarchy problem that have been proposed in recent years. The PI will show how non-linearly realized discrete symmetries provide exponential protection of scalar masses and find the guiding rules needed to construct models that utilize this surprising feature. First he will generalize the results of abelian discrete symmetries to non-abelian discrete symmetries. Non-abelian discrete symmetries have accidental symmetries present in some of their interactions in which the Higgs boson can be embedded, extending the exponential protection to the Higgs boson. On the cosmological front, he will study production mechanisms of extremely light vector bosons. By utilizing adiabatic conversion in the presence of a primordial magnetic field, misaligned axions can be turned into vector bosons. This technique can be used to obtain vector dark matter or to reduce the abundance of the axion.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.