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Project

Constraints on effective theories.

One of the ultimate goals of high energy physics is to find a consistent and useful microscopic theory which unifies and organizes particle physics and cosmology at arbitrary energy scales, similar to the way atomic theory unifies material science. This is challenging, as sharply distinguishing features of such theories become only completely manifest at characteristic energies that may be too high to be accessible in the lab. At energies below this scale, particle physics and cosmology are well described by effective field theories such as the Standard Model and general relativity. It is therefore crucially important to understand to what extent unifying theories such as strong theory constrain the form and parameters of effective field theories. The project addresses the following questions: How do underlying symmetries and geometric structures constain effective field theories? How 'natural' would it be for the scale where (four dimensional) effective field theory breaks down to be accessible at, say, the LHC? What are generic imprints of early universe physics at this scale on the cosmic microwave background? What do constraints on gravitational effective theories, via holographic dualities, teach us about strongly couples many-body systems? And how in the first place do effective field theories actually emerge from the underlying microscopic principles.
Date:1 Jan 2011 →  31 Dec 2016
Keywords:AdS-CFT, String theory, Effective field theory, Cosmology, High energy physics