Physics at the Frontier: Collinder and Cosmology

This award funds the research activities of Professors Wackeroth, Kinney, and Stojkovic at the State University of New York, University at Buffalo. The goal of this research project is to make important progress in providing answers to key open questions at the frontiers of particle physics, cosmology and gravity research, and in doing so to go significantly beyond the current state of the art in the field. New particle accelerators such as the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) and envisioned successors are probing new physics at the energy frontier and are capable of providing answers to important questions about the structure and history of the universe. On the other hand, cosmology provides a unique laboratory in which to study questions in physics inaccessible to traditional particle physics methods, and forms a valuable complement to accelerators. Our current understanding of the fundamental problems about the origin, evolution and future of our universe is still in its infancy, and a synthesis of many independent lines of evidence will be necessary to point the way to explanations. This project reflects that synergy, and promises to make significant progress in connecting high-precision cosmological and accelerator data to fundamental questions such as the origin and evolution of the universe, the unification of gravitation with quantum mechanics, the role of the vacuum in the structure of space and time. As a result, research in these areas advances the national interest by promoting the progress of science in one of its most fundamental directions: the discovery and understanding of new physical laws. In addition, this project will involve graduate students and postdocs, and thereby provide critical training for junior physicists beginning research in this field. The PIs will also continue presenting the latest scientific results to the public at large in the form of public talks and various outreach activities. Kinney will also continue organizing Science and Art Cabaret --- a unique mix of cutting-edge science and technology with art, music, poetry, and performance. More technically, Wackeroth will concentrate on improving predictions for key SM measurements at the LHC by calculating higher-order QCD and electroweak corrections and implementing them in publicly available Monte Carlo event generators for realistic simulations. The comparison of experimental data with these improved predictions will probe the Standard Model with unprecedented precision and provide increased sensitivity to signals of new physics. The main thrust of Kinney's planned research for the next several years is to make quantitative connections between new observational Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) data and detailed properties of the early universe in order to address fundamental questions such as: What is the energy scale of cosmological inflation? What is the form of the leading-order operator in the inflationary potential? Is the inflationary Lagrangian consistent with a simple canonical field theory? Is there evidence for quantum gravity effects, for example a Planck-scale cutoff in quantum modes? Can we explain CMB anomalies, such as the hemispherical asymmetry observed by Planck? Are there viable alternatives to inflation? What properties do they have? Finally, Stojkovic will focus on LHC physics, in particular on further development of a comprehensive LHC event generator BlackMax which is extensively used by the ATLAS and CMS collaborations in search for exotic physics.