Grant: Subatomic Physics Envelope - Individual

The objective if this research program is to generate new knowledge on the frontiers of theoretical elementary particle physics with the aim of achieving a better understanding of nature at its most fundamental level. This includes the incubation and development of new ideas in string theory and quantum field theory and on applying them to the understanding of the physics of elementary particles at the high energy frontier. One focus is the application of AdS/CFT duality to learn as much as possible about the behavior of gauge field theories in their strong coupling regime. In the current ``age of the LHC'', it is expected that the Higgs particle and perhaps other particles which would give hints about physics beyond the standard model could be discovered within the next few years. There is the distinct possibility that the electroweak sector of the standard model is more strongly coupled than was anticipated and our strategy is to derive new techniques and results about strongly coupled gauge theories with the aim of being able to study strong coupling physics at the TeV scale when hints as to what this physics might be emerge. This will include a fresh look at ideas such as the technicolor mechanism for dynamical symmetry breaking. We shall also work to develop our understanding of the mathematical structure of gauge field theories, mostly through advances in understanding of supersymmetric theories, development of the suspected exact integrability of N=4 Yang Mills theory and the relationship between integrable models and vacua of N=2 theorie. Our work presently focuses on nonperturbative phenomena, mostly in N=4 theory, for example, our ongoing study of the Schwinger pair production of W-bosons in strong electric fields, where we have found that we could use AdS/CFT duality to take into account planar gluon corrections to all orders in the coupling constant and thereby obtain a generalization of Schwinger's amplitude with interesting consequences.Some of our work has significant overlap with condensed matter physics.