Exploring the Limits of the Standard Model and Beyond

大型强子对撞机（LHC）的实验最近开始获取数据，并将在未来十年对粒子物理产生非常重大的影响。他们将证实或反驳希格斯场作为质量产生的基本机制，预计将有物理学“超越标准模型”的签名。粒子物理学的标准模型取得了显著的（也是令人沮丧的）成功，但在它之后留下了以下众所周知的难题：质量的起源，对统一的追求和味道的问题。这个提议是为了支持南安普顿大学的理论粒子物理学家的研究，他们致力于解决这些问题。主要目标是提供理论思想和技术，这将有助于我们的实验同事发现希格斯玻色子和新物理的签名，影响将要进行的分析，并有助于实验数据的理论解释。这项工作有许多方面，我们现在简要回顾其中一些，并解释南安普顿小组的作用。希格斯玻色子的实验发现特征，以及实际上存在于标准模型之外的理论中的粒子的实验发现特征，取决于这些粒子的质量和新理论。在南安普顿，我们有专门知识和经验，为这些研究制定战略，并在发展新的物理学理论。我们与在大型强子对撞机工作的英国实验者有着密切的联系，并将在他们的分析中与他们密切合作。事实上，我们与卢瑟福-阿普尔顿实验室（RAL）一起成立了NExT（新实验理论相互作用）研究所，其主要目标是理论家和实验者的密切合作，NExT最近已经扩大到包括苏塞克斯和皇家霍洛威。分析的结果反过来又会约束新的理论，例如通过证实或反驳超对称性的想法，并指导我们解开基础物理学的下一个层次。这是非常令人兴奋的时刻！当然，为了确信我们已经观察到了新物理学的信号，我们必须确保我们所看到的不仅仅是标准模型的微妙效应。由于我们对强核力的影响进行量化的能力有限，这往往很难做到。在南安普顿，我们在量子色动力学，QCD，这些强相互作用的理论方面有着杰出的专业知识。这包括一个主要的研究方案，使用最先进的超级计算机计算各种物理过程的这些影响。我们未来方案的一个主要组成部分是扩大和发展IBM BlueGene/Q超级计算机的数值模拟活动，该计算机将于2011年年中投入使用。很可能一些（或者所有）新粒子太重，无法在LHC上直接观察到。在这种情况下，必须通过观察“罕见”过程与标准模型预测的偏差来间接推断它们的存在。数值模拟方案将是确定这些偏差的核心，我们正在使用的分析技术也是如此。我们对强相互作用系统的行为也有更广泛的兴趣，这些系统可以在标准模型之外的物理学和宇宙学中发挥作用。例如，我们将研究复合希格斯模型和具有非常不同行为的QCD变体。这样的系统也通过“对偶性”与引力理论紧密相连，它提供了广义相对论、弦论和黑洞物理学中强耦合的另一种描述-这些研究将揭示从QCD到量子引力的相变物理学。

Experiments at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) have recently began taking data and over the next decade will have a very major impact on particle physics. They will confirm or disprove the Higgs field as the underlying mechanism for the generation of mass and it is to be expected that there will be signatures of physics 'Beyond the Standard Model'. The Standard Model of Particle Physics has been remarkably (and frustratingly) successful and yet leaves in its wake the following well known puzzles: the origin of mass, the quest for unification and the problem of flavour. This proposal is to support the research of the theoretical particle physicists at the University of Southampton which addresses these questions. The main goal is to provide the theoretical ideas and techniques which will help our experimental colleagues discover the Higgs Boson and signatures of new physics, to influence the analyses which will be performed and to contribute to the theoretical interpretation of the experimental data. There are many aspects to this work and we now briefly review some of these and explain the Southampton group's role. The experimental discovery signatures of the Higgs Boson, and indeed of the particles present in theories beyond the standard model, depend on the masses of these particles and on the new theories. In Southampton we have expertise and experience in devising strategies for these searches and also in developing theories of new physics. We have close links to the UK experimenters working at the LHC and will work closely with them in their analyses. Indeed, together with the Rutherford-Appleton Laboratory (RAL), we have founded the NExT (New Experimental Theoretical Interactions) Institute with the close collaboration of theorists and experimenters as its main goal, and NExT has recently been expanded to include Sussex and Royal Holloway. The results from the analyses in turn will constrain the new theories, for example by confirming or disproving the idea of supersymmetry, and guide us in unravelling the next level of fundamental physics. These are remarkably exciting times! Of course, in order to be confident that we have observed a signal of new physics we have to be sure that what we are seeing is not simply a subtle effect of the standard model. Frequently, as a result of our limited ability to quantify the effects of the strong nuclear force, this is difficult to do. In Southampton we have outstanding expertise in quantum chromodynamics, QCD, the theory of these strong interactions. This includes a major research programme using state-of-the-art supercomputers to compute these effects for a wide variety of physical processes. A major component of our future programme is to expand and develop the activity of numerical simulations on the IBM BlueGene/Q supercomputers which will be commissioned in mid-2011. It is likely that some (or perhaps all) new particles will be too heavy to be observed directly at the LHC. In that case their presence will have to be deduced indirectly, by observing deviations from Standard Model predictions for 'rare' processes. The programme of numerical simulations will be central in establishing these deviations as will the analytical techniques which we are using. We also have a wider interest in the behaviour of strongly interacting systems which could play a role in physics beyond the standard model and in cosmology. For example we will study composite higgs models and variants of QCD with very different behaviour. Such systems are also deeply connected to theories of gravitation through a 'duality' which provides an alternative description of strong coupling in terms of general relativity, string theory and black hole physics - these studies will shed light on physics from phase transitions in QCD to quantum gravity.