Particle Physics Phenomenology: Understanding The Standard Model and Searching for What Lies Beyond

粒子物理学的目标是了解构成宇宙万物的基本粒子以及它们之间的相互作用。我们目前有一个叫做标准模型的模型，它能很好地描述所有已知的基本粒子和它们之间的相互作用。然而，我们知道它不可能是最终的理论，因为标准模型的理论不一致，以及对它无法解释的现象的观察，比如占宇宙物质大约85%的“暗物质”的存在。我的研究集中在试图解决这些问题的粒子物理新理论上。我的研究方向是现象学，这是一门基于可以通过实验验证的理论模型进行预测，并试图构建理论模型来解释实验结果的学科。在这个领域工作是一个非常激动人心的时刻。位于日内瓦的欧洲核子研究中心（CERN）实验室的大型强子对撞机（Large Hadron Collider）正在探测迄今为止基于加速器的实验所探测到的最高能量尺度，因此物理界正在期待新的结果，这些结果可能有助于我们了解标准模型之外的东西。从基于加速器的暗物质产生限制，到直接探测实验（如位于萨德伯里SNOLab的DEAP），再到天体物理观测，关于暗物质的新结果也源源不断。在构建理论和面对所有这些新的实验结果之间存在着令人兴奋的相互作用。这需要对这些模型的期望进行详细的计算。这是我研究的重点，构建可以解释这些现象和新发现的模型，计算这些模型预测的实验信号，并制定实验学家可以用来找到这些信号的策略。理论和实验之间的相互作用对于我们对基本相互作用的理解取得进展至关重要。

The goal of particle physics is to understand the fundamental particles that make up everything in the universe and their interactions. We currently have a model called the standard model that works remarkably well in describing all the known elementary particles and their interactions. Yet we know that it can't be the final theory because of both theoretical inconsistencies in the standard model and the observation of phenomena that it cannot explain such as the existence of "dark matter" that makes up roughly 85% of the matter in the universe. My research focuses on new theories of particle physics that attempt to address these problems. I work in phenomenology which makes predictions based on theoretical models that can be tested by experiment and attempts to construct theoretical models to explain experimental results. It is a very exciting time to be working in this field. The Large Hadron Collider, operating at the CERN laboratory in Geneva, is probing the highest energy scales ever probed by accelerator based experiments so that the physics community is anticipating new results that might help us understand what lies beyond the standard model. There is also a constant stream of new results on dark matter ranging from accelerator based limits on dark matter production, direct detection experiments such as DEAP which is situated in SNOLab in Sudbury to astrophysical observations. There is an exciting interplay between constructing theories and confronting all these new experimental results. This requires detailed calculations of the expectations of these models. This is the focus of my research, to construct models that can explain these phenomena and new discoveries as they arise, to calculate the experimental signals predicted by these models and to develop strategies that experimentalists can use to find these signals. This interplay between theory and experiment is crucial to making advances in our understanding of the fundamental interactions.