Grant: Subatomic Physics Envelope - Individual

The past two years have seen a major triumph of theoretical and experimental physics working hand in hand. This culminated in the discovery of a Standard Model-like Higgs boson at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). The Standard Model of particle physics is now confirmed experimentally, including strong, electroweak sector and flavour physics. While the Large Hadron Collider has provided no hint of other new physics, Physics beyond the Standard Model is needed to explain experimental data on neutrino masses and mixing, and cosmology and astrophysics also require new physics to explain the origin of matter, dark matter, dark energy and the Cosmic Microwave Background fluctuations. My work concentrates on supersymmetry (a possible explanation of the hierarchy between the gravitational scale and the weak scale by introducing a new symmetry, relating fermions and bosons), and on warped space extra dimensional models (an alternative explanation of the hierarchy problem, by extending the dimensions of space-time), as two of the most promising possibilities of physics beyond the Standard Model. I plan to work in non-minimal scenarios (containing extra particles and gauge symmetries), which answer some of the issues left unresolved by minimal versions. These models are required to be consistent with present collider experiments, and with experiments searching directly or indirectly for dark matter. The goal is to predict new signals at the next phase(s) of the large collider operation with higher energy and luminosity, and at the proposed linear collider, while keeping an open mind and explore whatever else the LHC may reveal in its next run. *This research into beyond the Standard Model will shed some light on the fundamental structure of matter, for both baryonic and dark matter, and the interplay between them. I hope to be able to rule out some possibilities for Physics scenarios beyond the Standard Model, while also indicating promising directions for further explorations.*