H2020Индивидуална стипендия2019–2021

EUVSBSMP · Early Universe Vacuum Stability and Beyond the Standard Model Physics

„Хоризонт 2020“ — Действия „Мария Склодовска-Кюри“

Период: 2019-09-01 → 2021-08-31
Финансиране от ЕС: 136 583 €
Участници: 1
Схема: MSCA-IF-EF-ST

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Накратко на български

Стабилността на вакуума в ранната Вселена се анализира чрез свойствата на Хигс бозона, тъй като някои теории предвиждат неговия катастрофален разпад. Това помага да се отсеят грешни теории за тъмната материя и неутриното, които противоречат на съществуването на космоса.

Този кратък обзор е генериран от изкуствен интелект

Кратко обяснение, генерирано от езиков модел по текста на CORDIS. Оригиналът е по-долу.

Резултати накратко

Early Universe Vacuum Stability and Beyond the Standard Model Physics

The discovery of the Higgs boson was a ground breaking achievement, however many of its cosmological implications are yet to be explored. In particular, it recently has become apparent that the vacuum state of the Universe is in fact not a stable one but may cataclysmically decay. Currently, this process is suppressed and for all practical purposes cannot happen, however this might not be the case for the very early stages of cosmological evolution, specifically during or immediately after the cosmic epoch known as inflation when the Universe expands at an exponential rate. All of this is directly linked to the properties of the Higgs boson, whose existence is known, however the final theory of particle physics is currently shrouded in mystery. Neutrino masses and dark matter are just a few examples that do not yet have a proper particle physics explanation, with a large number of different theoretical suggestions proposed. A vacuum collapse of the state of the Universe during its early stages is in direct conflict with current observations, simply put, we know that the Universe has not collapsed since we are here to observe it. This way of thinking may then be used as a means of constraining physics beyond the standard model of particle physics: many novel particle physics theories designed to address some of the issues dogging the standard model may suffer from a vacuum collapse or mechanisms very similar to it in the early Universe allowing one to effectively rule them out based on the cosmological implications alone, even when their predictions would be in complete agreement with experimental results from particle accelerators. In a nutshell, the core of this project was to push our knowledge of fundamental particle physics forward by using our understanding of cosmology. The standard model is the most tested theory science knows and so far has been remarkably successful. However, it does have its limitations and probing the vast landscape of theories designed to address these issues is the only way humanity can ever hope to discover theories that explain current observations in a more complete manner. After all, the question “why are we here?” cannot be answered without first having a complete theory of particle physics. The main objective of this action was thus to investigate all observable consequences from the mechanisms that may lead to vacuum collapse in the early Universe in the framework of beyond standard model particle physics. Furthermore, it was also investigated whether such mechanisms could in fact the be very reason matter (dark or ordinary) exists in the first place.

Текст от CORDIS, на английски · Данни: CORDIS, © Европейски съюз

Цел на проекта

The discovery of the Higgs boson marks the completion of a vibrant era of discoveries. With it we now posses a framework, the Standard Model (SM) of particle physics, with which to predict the behavior of elementary particles to unrepresented accuracy. Despite its success somewhat surprisingly there already exists strong evidence to suggest that the SM cannot be the complete theory of elementary interactions. For example, the vast majority of matter in the Universe seems to consist of a mysterious invisible component, dark matter, for which the SM gives no explanation. So far the Large Hadron Collider has provided few clues as to how to move the current understanding forward. Perhaps the most unexpected finding has been the implication that the current vacuum state of the Universe as predicted by the SM is not stable but in fact the world as we know it may collapse in a cataclysmic crunch when given enough time. Since the root cause of this vacuum instability lies in quantum mechanics the time it takes for this to happen is extremely long, much longer than the age of the Universe implying that this prediction is not in direct conflict with observations. However, when taking into account the current understanding of cosmology the situation changes drastically, as has been recently discovered: in the extreme conditions of the Early Universe a catastrophic collapse can become likely, which provides a window for probing and constraining elementary interactions by using cosmology and vice versa. In this action we propose to use this window to explore the rich landscape of beyond the SM physics, in particular, we suggest to make full use of its constraining power to obtain state-of-the-art bounds for well-motivated extensions of the SM. We also strive to explore the theoretical implications from the vacuum instability for Early Universe model building, including dark matter generation, as well as to solidify it as a method for obtaining novel observable predictions.

Оригинален текст от CORDIS (на английски).

Участници

KEEMILISE JA BIOLOOGILISE FUUSIKA INSTITUUT · TallinnКоординаторЕстония