scholarly journals Higgs cosmology

Author(s):  
Arttu Rajantie

The discovery of the Higgs boson in 2012 and other results from the Large Hadron Collider have confirmed the standard model of particle physics as the correct theory of elementary particles and their interactions up to energies of several TeV. Remarkably, the theory may even remain valid all the way to the Planck scale of quantum gravity, and therefore it provides a solid theoretical basis for describing the early Universe. Furthermore, the Higgs field itself has unique properties that may have allowed it to play a central role in the evolution of the Universe, from inflation to cosmological phase transitions and the origin of both baryonic and dark matter, and possibly to determine its ultimate fate through the electroweak vacuum instability. These connections between particle physics and cosmology have given rise to a new and growing field of Higgs cosmology, which promises to shed new light on some of the most puzzling questions about the Universe as new data from particle physics experiments and cosmological observations become available. This article is part of the Theo Murphy meeting issue ‘Higgs cosmology’.

Author(s):  
A. Kurup

The standard model (SM) of particle physics describes how the Universe works at a fundamental level. Even though this theory has proven to be very successful over the past 50 years, we know it is incomplete. Many theories that go beyond the SM predict the occurrence of certain processes that are forbidden by the SM, such as muon to electron conversion. This paper will briefly review the history of muon to electron conversion and focus on the high-precision experiments currently being proposed, COMET (Coherent Muon to Electron Transition) and Mu2e, and a next-generation experiment, PRISM. The PRISM experiment intends to use a novel type of accelerator called a fixed-field alternating-gradient (FFAG) accelerator. There has recently been renewed interest in FFAGs for the Neutrino Factory and the Muon Collider, and because they have applications in many areas outside of particle physics, such as energy production and cancer therapy. The synergies between these particle physics experiments and other applications will also be discussed.


2015 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 45-56 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alban Kellerbauer

Almost ten years after the first production of cold antimatter at CERN, the confinement of antihydrogen has recently been achieved for the first time. Several experiments installed at the Antiproton Decelerator intend to test the symmetry between matter and antimatter by means of trapped anti-atoms. In addition, in the coming years it is planned to study the effect of gravity on antiparticles for the first time. Meanwhile, evidence from the Large Hadron Collider hinting at a violation of charge–parity symmetry beyond the Standard Model of particle physics has yet to be confirmed. A violation of the discrete symmetries that describe the relation between matter and antimatter could explain the excess of ordinary matter in the Universe.


Author(s):  
John Ellis

The Standard Model of particle physics agrees very well with experiment, but many important questions remain unanswered, among them are the following. What is the origin of particle masses and are they due to a Higgs boson? How does one understand the number of species of matter particles and how do they mix? What is the origin of the difference between matter and antimatter, and is it related to the origin of the matter in the Universe? What is the nature of the astrophysical dark matter? How does one unify the fundamental interactions? How does one quantize gravity? In this article, I introduce these questions and discuss how they may be addressed by experiments at the Large Hadron Collider, with particular attention to the search for the Higgs boson and supersymmetry.


2021 ◽  
Vol 81 (8) ◽  
Author(s):  
Fulvio Melia

AbstractToday we have a solid, if incomplete, physical picture of how inertia is created in the standard model. We know that most of the visible baryonic ‘mass’ in the Universe is due to gluonic back-reaction on accelerated quarks, the latter of which attribute their own inertia to a coupling with the Higgs field – a process that elegantly and self-consistently also assigns inertia to several other particles. But we have never had a physically viable explanation for the origin of rest-mass energy, in spite of many attempts at understanding it towards the end of the nineteenth century, culminating with Einstein’s own landmark contribution in his Annus Mirabilis. Here, we introduce to this discussion some of the insights we have garnered from the latest cosmological observations and theoretical modeling to calculate our gravitational binding energy with that portion of the Universe to which we are causally connected, and demonstrate that this energy is indeed equal to $$mc^2$$ m c 2 when the inertia m is viewed as a surrogate for gravitational mass.


2015 ◽  
Vol 30 (28n29) ◽  
pp. 1545001
Author(s):  
Fedor Bezrukov ◽  
Mikhail Shaposhnikov

After the Higgs boson has been discovered, the Standard Model of particle physics became a confirmed theory, potentially valid up to the Planck scale and allowing to trace the evolution of the Universe from inflationary stage till the present days. We discuss the relation between the results from the LHC and the inflationary cosmology. We given an overview of the Higgs inflation, and its relation to the possible metastability of the electroweak vacuum. A short overview of the bounds on the metastability of the electroweak vacuum in the models with inflation not related to the Higgs boson is presented.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adib Rifqi Setiawan

Put simply, Lisa Randall’s job is to figure out how the universe works, and what it’s made of. Her contributions to theoretical particle physics include two models of space-time that bear her name. The first Randall–Sundrum model addressed a problem with the Standard Model of the universe, and the second concerned the possibility of a warped additional dimension of space. In this work, we caught up with Randall to talk about why she chose a career in physics, where she finds inspiration, and what advice she’d offer budding physicists. This article has been edited for clarity. My favourite quote in this interview is, “Figure out what you enjoy, what your talents are, and what you’re most curious to learn about.” If you insterest in her work, you can contact her on Twitter @lirarandall.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adib Rifqi Setiawan

Put simply, Lisa Randall’s job is to figure out how the universe works, and what it’s made of. Her contributions to theoretical particle physics include two models of space-time that bear her name. The first Randall–Sundrum model addressed a problem with the Standard Model of the universe, and the second concerned the possibility of a warped additional dimension of space. In this work, we caught up with Randall to talk about why she chose a career in physics, where she finds inspiration, and what advice she’d offer budding physicists. This article has been edited for clarity. My favourite quote in this interview is, “Figure out what you enjoy, what your talents are, and what you’re most curious to learn about.” If you insterest in her work, you can contact her on Twitter @lirarandall.


2004 ◽  
Vol 13 (10) ◽  
pp. 2355-2359 ◽  
Author(s):  
JONATHAN L. FENG ◽  
ARVIND RAJARAMAN ◽  
FUMIHIRO TAKAYAMA

The gravitational interactions of elementary particles are suppressed by the Planck scale M*~1018 GeV and are typically expected to be far too weak to be probed by experiments. We show that, contrary to conventional wisdom, such interactions may be studied by particle physics experiments in the next few years. As an example, we consider conventional supergravity with a stable gravitino as the lightest supersymmetric particle. The next-lightest supersymmetric particle (NLSP) decays to the gravitino through gravitational interactions after about a year. This lifetime can be measured by stopping NLSPs at colliders and observing their decays. Such studies will yield a measurement of Newton's gravitational constant on unprecedentedly small scales, shed light on dark matter, and provide a window on the early universe.


2021 ◽  
Vol 71 (1) ◽  
pp. 279-313
Author(s):  
Gaia Lanfranchi ◽  
Maxim Pospelov ◽  
Philip Schuster

At the dawn of a new decade, particle physics faces the challenge of explaining the mystery of dark matter, the origin of matter over antimatter in the Universe, the apparent fine-tuning of the electroweak scale, and many other aspects of fundamental physics. Perhaps the most striking frontier to emerge in the search for answers involves New Physics at mass scales comparable to that of familiar matter—below the GeV scale but with very feeble interaction strength. New theoretical ideas to address dark matter and other fundamental questions predict such feebly interacting particles (FIPs) at these scales, and existing data may even provide hints of this possibility. Emboldened by the lessons of the LHC, a vibrant experimental program to discover such physics is underway, guided by a systematic theoretical approach that is firmly grounded in the underlying principles of the Standard Model. We give an overview of these efforts, their motivations, and the decadal goals that animate the community involved in the search for FIPs, and we focus in particular on accelerator-based experiments.


2019 ◽  
pp. 54-63
Author(s):  
Nicholas Mee

The structure of matter and the forces that are important in particle physics are now understood in terms of the Standard Model, which is currently being tested at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). Since the 1930s, physicists have used particle accelerators to investigate the structure of matter. Three forces are important in particle interactions, the strong force, the weak force and the electromagnetic force. The weak and electromagnetic forces are now recognized as two components of a unified electroweak force. The strong force and the electroweak force act on a small collection of fundamental particles that include quarks, the subcomponents of protons, neutrons and many other particles. The final missing piece of the Standard Model, the Higgs boson, was discovered by the LHC in 2012.


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