This award funds the research activities of Professors Elizabeth H. Simmons and R. Sekhar Chivukula at UC San Diego.
The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is the most energetic particle collider in the world. By colliding subatomic elementary particles against each other at high energies, particle physicists hope to learn about the fundamental constituents of matter and energy in the universe. During the award period, the LHC will commence a new experimental run which will collect substantially more data than has been available to date, significantly extending our reach for discovering new constituents of matter and uncovering new physical principles. Analyzing this data is in the national interest since it will promote the progress of fundamental science through the examination of the nature of matter at the shortest distance scales and elucidating the laws by which matter and energy interact. Through their research, Professors Simmons and Chivukula aim to construct and analyze new theories which describe the nature and properties of the so-called "Higgs Boson" discovered at the LHC and to delineate the best experimental analyses for swiftly and decisively understanding the nature of any new dynamics discovered at the LHC. They will also explore the complementarity between LHC results and the data gathered from other experimental searches for new physics, including those designed to uncover the nature of the "dark matter" which comprises the majority of mass in our galaxy. This research will also have substantial broader impacts, including the development of new and continuing science courses at UC San Diego, public presentations on science to audiences of all ages, extensive work to improve the environment in physics for all participants, and continued service to the national and international physics community. This research project will also involve students and postdoctoral researchers and thereby contribute to the training and development of the next generation of scientists in our nation.
More technically, Professors Simmons and Chivukula will extend their simplified-limits formalism to consider how best to combine LHC searches from various decay modes to uncover new resonances potentially decaying into multiple channels. They will apply their work on simplified limits to analyze non-resonant annihilation of dark matter particles in galactic halos and investigate how such methods can constrain (or discover) particulate dark matter. They will study the theory and phenomenology of top-partner states which are predicted in numerous composite Higgs models and examine novel strategies for discovering these states at the LHC. They will extend their work on Jet Energy Correlations to create sensitive new probes for discovering additional colored states at the LHC. Furthermore, they will examine and characterize the properties of theories which include massive spin-two states arising from compactified theories of gravity and will test whether such states can serve as portals for the production of dark-matter particles.
This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
