scholarly journals Where is particle physics going?

2017 ◽  
Vol 32 (34) ◽  
pp. 1746001 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Ellis

The answer to the question in the title is: in search of new physics beyond the Standard Model, for which there are many motivations, including the likely instability of the electroweak vacuum, dark matter, the origin of matter, the masses of neutrinos, the naturalness of the hierarchy of mass scales, cosmological inflation and the search for quantum gravity. So far, however, there are no clear indications about the theoretical solutions to these problems, nor the experimental strategies to resolve them. It makes sense now to prepare various projects for possible future accelerators, so as to be ready for decisions when the physics outlook becomes clearer. Paraphrasing George Harrison, “If you don’t yet know where you’re going, any road may take you there.”

2018 ◽  
Vol 33 (02) ◽  
pp. 1830003 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Ellis

The most important discovery in particle physics in recent years was that of the Higgs boson, and much effort is continuing to measure its properties, which agree obstinately with the Standard Model, so far. However, there are many reasons to expect physics beyond the Standard Model, motivated by the stability of the electroweak vacuum, the existence of dark matter and the origin of the visible matter in the Universe, neutrino physics, the hierarchy of mass scales in physics, cosmological inflation and the need for a quantum theory for gravity. Most of these issues are being addressed by the experiments during Run 2 of the LHC, and supersymmetry could help resolve many of them. In addition to the prospects for the LHC, I also review briefly those for direct searches for dark matter and possible future colliders.


Universe ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 45
Author(s):  
Christof Wetterich

We compute the effective potential for scalar fields in asymptotically safe quantum gravity. A scaling potential and other scaling functions generalize the fixed point values of renormalizable couplings. The scaling potential takes a non-polynomial form, approaching typically a constant for large values of scalar fields. Spontaneous symmetry breaking may be induced by non-vanishing gauge couplings. We strengthen the arguments for a prediction of the ratio between the masses of the top quark and the Higgs boson. Higgs inflation in the standard model is unlikely to be compatible with asymptotic safety. Scaling solutions with vanishing relevant parameters can be sufficient for a realistic description of particle physics and cosmology, leading to an asymptotically vanishing “cosmological constant” or dynamical dark energy.


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.


2013 ◽  
Vol 53 (A) ◽  
pp. 528-533
Author(s):  
Giulio Auriemma

The most interesting cosmological open problems, baryon asymmetry, dark matter, inflation and dark energy, are not explained by the standard model of particle physics (SM). The final<br />goal of the Large Hadron Collider an experimental verification of the SM in the Higgs sector, and also a search for evidence of new physics beyond it. In this paper we will report some of the results obtained in 2010 and 2011, from the LHCb experiment dedicated to the study of CP violations and rare decays of heavy quarks.


Author(s):  
Junji Hisano

It is now certain that dark matter exists in the Universe. However, we do not know its nature, nor are there dark matter candidates in the standard model of particle physics or astronomy However, weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs) in models beyond the standard model are one of the leading candidates available to provide explanation. The dark matter direct detection experiments, in which the nuclei recoiled by WIMPs are sought, are one of the methods to elucidate the nature of dark matter. This chapter introduces an effective field theory (EFT) approach in order to evaluate the nucleon–WIMP elastic scattering cross section.


2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Gary P. Centers ◽  
John W. Blanchard ◽  
Jan Conrad ◽  
Nataniel L. Figueroa ◽  
Antoine Garcon ◽  
...  

AbstractNumerous theories extending beyond the standard model of particle physics predict the existence of bosons that could constitute dark matter. In the standard halo model of galactic dark matter, the velocity distribution of the bosonic dark matter field defines a characteristic coherence time τc. Until recently, laboratory experiments searching for bosonic dark matter fields have been in the regime where the measurement time T significantly exceeds τc, so null results have been interpreted by assuming a bosonic field amplitude Φ0 fixed by the average local dark matter density. Here we show that experiments operating in the T ≪ τc regime do not sample the full distribution of bosonic dark matter field amplitudes and therefore it is incorrect to assume a fixed value of Φ0 when inferring constraints. Instead, in order to interpret laboratory measurements (even in the event of a discovery), it is necessary to account for the stochastic nature of such a virialized ultralight field. The constraints inferred from several previous null experiments searching for ultralight bosonic dark matter were overestimated by factors ranging from 3 to 10 depending on experimental details, model assumptions, and choice of inference framework.


2016 ◽  
Vol 25 (13) ◽  
pp. 1645014 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Ellis

Cosmology and particle physics have long been dominated by theoretical paradigms: Einstein’s general theory of relativity in cosmology and the standard model of particle physics. The time may have come for paradigm shifts. Does cosmological inflation require a modification of Einstein’s gravity? Have experiments at the LHC discovered a new particle beyond the Standard Model? It is premature to answer these questions, but we theorists can dream about the possibilities.


2007 ◽  
Vol 22 (30) ◽  
pp. 5550-5560
Author(s):  
A. BETTINI

Astroparticle is a very wide, expanding, sector of Physics; this report covers only a fraction of it complementing the plenary reports of Y. Takahashi and K. Inoue. I will focus, in particular, on the experimental evidence of new physics, beyond the Standard Model. Astroparticle and accelerator experiments will give complementary tools in the search of new particles, like those of the dark matter, and new fundamental fields, like the inflaton.


2021 ◽  
Vol 2021 (7) ◽  
Author(s):  
Yasaman Farzan

Abstract Observation of high energy cosmic neutrinos by ICECUBE has ushered in a new era in exploring both cosmos and new physics beyond the Standard Model (SM). In the standard picture, although mostly νμ and νe are produced in the source, oscillation will produce ντen route. Certain beyond SM scenarios, like interaction with ultralight DM can alter this picture. Thus, the flavor composition of the cosmic neutrino flux can open up the possibility of exploring certain beyond the SM scenarios that are inaccessible otherwise. We show that the τ flavor holds a special place among the neutrino flavors in elucidating new physics. Interpreting the two anomalous events observed by ANITA as ντ events makes the tau flavor even more intriguing. We study how the detection of the two tau events by ICECUBE constrains the interaction of the neutrinos with ultralight dark matter and discuss the implications of this interaction for even higher energy cosmic neutrinos detectable by future radio telescopes such as ARA, ARIANNA and GRAND. We also revisit the 3 + 1 neutrino scheme as a solution to the two anomalous ANITA events and clarify a misconception that exists in the literature about the evolution of high energy neutrinos in matter within the 3 + 1 scheme with a possibility of scattering off nuclei. We show that the existing bounds on the flux of ντ with energy of EeV rules out this solution for the ANITA events. We show that the 3 + 1 solution can be saved from both this bound and from the bound on the extra relativistic degrees of freedom in the early universe by turning on the interaction of neutrinos with ultralight dark matter.


Symmetry ◽  
2022 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 112
Author(s):  
Maxim Khlopov

The physics of the dark Universe goes beyond the standard model (BSM) of fundamental interactions. The now-standard cosmology involves inflation, baryosynthesis and dark matter/energy corresponding to BSM physics. Cosmoparticle physics offers cross disciplinary study of the fundamental relationship of cosmology and particle physics in the combination of its physical, astrophysical and cosmological signatures. Methods of cosmoparticle physics in studies of BSM physics in its relationship with inevitably nonstandard features of dark universe cosmology are discussed. In the context of these methods, such exotic phenomena as primordial black holes, antimatter stars in baryon asymmetrical Universe or multi-charged constituents of nuclear interacting atoms of composite dark matter play the role of sensitive probes for BSM models and their parameters.


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