RU-A: Fundamental Particles and Forces

Fundamental particles and their interactions form the basis of all natural phenomena, including ultimately the origin of life. This RU strengthens the theoretical and conceptual foundations of ORIGINS. Many of the unresolved issues with the current microscopic theory revolve around four fundamental or emergent energy scales at which dramatic changes in the structure of the theory occur. RU-A is subdivided into four areas that are motivated by these scales: the Planck scale 10¹⁹ GeV (RU-A.1), where gravitation becomes strong and quantum effects become relevant; the TeV scale 10³ GeV (RU-A.2) currently probed by the LHC and possibly harbouring new physics related to the Higgs boson and electroweak symmetry breaking; the unknown scale of the origin of flavour and CP violation in the standard model (RU-A.3); and the emergent strong interaction scale of 1 GeV, at which one can study strong interaction quantum phenomena “in vivo” (RU-A.4), providing insights for model building at other scales.

Areas and Projects

• A.1: The Planck Scale: The scale of quantum gravity and of the emergence of spacetime and experimental signatures
  • New geometrical structures (Brunner)
  • Quantum gravity, higher spins (Lüst)
  • Quantum gravity effects for Dark Energy (Sachs)
• A.2: The TeV Scale: Probing fundamental particles in high energy collisions
  • A “Module 0” for a Highly Granular Calorimeter for a Future Lepton Collider (Simon)
  • Higgs boson measurements in the frame of effective field theories (Kortner, Kroha)
  • Higgs-boson processes in nonlinear EFT and higher-order QCD corrections (Buchalla)
  • Large area photon detection with high resolution (Biebel)
  • Measurement of the t-tbar-Z production in proton-proton collisions with the ATLAS detector at LHC (Biebel)
  • Probing the EFT of the top at the LHC and future hadron and lepton colliders (Weiler)
  • Searching for new particles using the Higgs portal (Schaile, Lorenz)
  • Towards the Next Generation of Lepton Colliders: Physics, Reconstruction & Detectors (Simon)
• A.3: The Unknown Scale: Searching for physics beyond the standard model and understanding flavour dynamics with precision experiments
  • B-meson Light-Cone Distribution Amplitudes (van Dyk)
  • Neutron Beta Decay (Märkisch)
  • Neutron EDM (Fierlinger)
  • Rare Decay B → K(*) l+ l- (Kuhr)
  • Search vor CP violation in B0 - > K pi and K* pi decays using Belle II Data (Moser)
• A.4: The GeV Scale: Interaction of quarks and gluons: from low energies to deconfinement
  • Chiral symmetry at ALICE (Fabbietti)
  • Chiral symmetry at COMPASS (Paul, Friedrich)
  • Exotic states (Brambilla)
  • Quark Gluon Plasma (Vairo)