This award funds the research activities of Professors Mary K. Gaillard, Lawrence J. Hall, Hitoshi Murayama, and Surjeet Rajendran at the University of California, Berkeley.
Particle physics --- in conjunction with related areas in cosmology and astrophysics --- asks fundamental questions about the inner and outer workings of our Universe. How did the Universe begin? What is it made of? How have we come to exist? Where we are going? What laws govern the answers to these questions? This area of research is moving very fast, venturing into unprecedented energies in particle collisions, unprecedented sensitivities in observing rare phenomena, and unprecedented accuracies in precision measurements. To accelerate progress in this area, Professors Gaillard, Hall, Murayama and Rajendran aim to develop novel ideas that will connect deep theoretical concepts to experimentally measurable processes. Building on their track records, these PI's also propose to discover and study those specific connections which aid in designing future experiments in this area. By advancing our understanding of these fundamental problems, this research aligns with and supports the mission of the National Science Foundation to promote the progress of basic science in the United States. Moreover, these kinds of profound questions excite the general public and young minds, and the PI's will continue to be engaged in training young scientists, promoting diversity, and participating in public outreach efforts through lectures, schools, media, and popular science books.
More technically, these PI's plan to study questions of direct relevance to dark matter, neutrinos, quark flavor, the phenomenology and theory of supersymmetry, observational cosmology, field theory, string theory, and the multiverse. Professor Murayama will focus on exploiting data from all of these areas in order to constrain possible corresponding theoretical frameworks, while Professor Hall will study new landscapes for physics beyond the Standard Model. Professor Gaillard will focus on connections between string theory and low-energy observable physics, and Professor Rajendran will investigate new solutions to the hierarchy problem which revolve around the so-called relaxion. He will also study new axion detection techniques. These professors will also maintain their broader-impact activities which involve service to the larger physics community, mentoring with an explicit goal of promoting diversity, engaging in QuarkNet outreach activities to high-school teachers and students, and delivering public lectures which will be available online.
