Investigation of Standard Model Physics and Beyond

大型强子对撞机（LHC）的实验证实了希格斯玻色子的存在，这一发现导致了2013年诺贝尔物理学奖。因此，希格斯机制是自然界选择的产生质量的机制。目前，对新发现物体的所有测量都与标准模型（SM）一致，这是目前流行的粒子物理学描述。因此，SM已经非常成功，但它留下了未解决的以下众所周知的难题：电弱和普朗克尺度之间的巨大差异，缺乏统一的力量和味道的问题。因此，尽管希格斯玻色子的发现，仍然需要超越SM（BSM）物理学。这个博士项目是为了支持解决这些问题的研究。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BSM签名，影响将要进行的分析，并有助于实验数据的理论解释。这个任务涉及到很多方面，我们现在简要回顾一下其中一些可以被这个项目所涵盖的方面。希格斯玻色子的实验发现特征，以及实际上可能存在于BSM场景中的其他新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。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SM的微妙效应。通常，由于我们对强核力的影响进行量化的能力有限，这很难做到，强核力干预了所有LHC过程。在南安普顿，我们在量子色动学（QCD），这些强相互作用的理论方面有杰出的专业知识。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。然而，也有可能一些（或者所有）新粒子太重而无法在LHC上直接观察到。在这种情况下，他们的存在将不得不间接推断，通过观察偏离SM预测的“罕见”的过程。利用数值模拟的对撞机现象学方案将是建立这些偏差和描绘其properties.We也有广泛的兴趣在强相互作用系统的行为，可以发挥作用，在BSM和宇宙学。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”与引力理论有着深刻的联系，这种对偶性提供了广义相对论、弦理论和黑洞物理学中强耦合的另一种描述。因此，这些研究将揭示从QCD相变到量子引力的物理学。

Experiments at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) have confirmed the existence of a Higgs boson, a discovery which led to the 2013 Nobel Prize in physics. The Higgs mechanism is therefore the one chosen by Nature for the generation of mass. Currently, all measurements of the properties of the newly discovered object are consistent with the Standard Model (SM), the current prevalent description of particle physics. The SM has therefore been remarkably successful, yet it leaves unsolved the following well known puzzles: the large difference between the Electro-Weak and Planck scale, the absence of unification of forces and the problem of flavour. Hence, in spite of the Higgs boson discovery, there remains a need for Beyond the SM (BSM) physics.This PhD project is to support the research which addresses these questions. The main goal is to provide the theoretical ideas and techniques which will help our experimental colleagues to discover BSM signatures, 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 task and we now briefly review some of these which could be covered by this project.The experimental discovery signatures of the Higgs Boson, and indeed of additional new particles possibly present in BSM scenarios, 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. 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 SM. Frequently, as a result of our limited ability to quantify the effects of the strong nuclear force, which intervenes in all LHC processes, this is difficult to do. In Southampton we have outstanding expertise in Quantum Chromo-Dynamics (QCD), the theory of these strong interactions. This includes a major research programme using state-of-the-art supercomputers to calculate these effects for a wide variety of physical processes. It is however also possible 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 SM predictions for "rare" processes. The programme of collider phenomenology exploiting numerical simulations will be central in establishing these deviations and delineating their properties.We also have a wide interest in the behaviour of strongly interacting systems which could play a role in BSM 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. Thus, these studies will shed light on physics from phase transitions in QCD to quantum gravity.