Events Archive

Particle Physics Seminar, Spencer Chang, U. of Oregon, "Phenomenology of Induced Electroweak Symmetry Breaking"
Fri, Mar 27, 2015, 4:00 pm5:30 pm
In this talk, I will discuss scenarios of induced electroweak symmetry breaking (EWSB), where the Higgs vev is induced by another EWSB source. These additional sources can be due to another Higgs vev or technicolor sector and can mitigate constraints on beyond the Standard Model theories (eg. raising the Higgs mass in supersymmetric models). I…
Special Particle Physics Seminar, Daniel Whiteson, UC Irvine, "Observing Ultra-High Energy Cosmic Rays with Smartphones"
Tue, Mar 10, 2015, 3:00 pm4:30 pm
We propose a novel approach for observing cosmic rays at ultra-high energy ($>10^{18}$~eV) by repurposing the existing network of smartphones as a ground detector array. Extensive air showers generated by cosmic rays produce muons and high-energy photons, which can be detected by the CMOS sensors of smartphone cameras. The small size and low…
Particle Physics Seminar, Hyung Do Kim, UMN, "Quantum Electroweak Symmetry Breaking"
Fri, Mar 6, 2015, 4:00 pm5:30 pm
The possibility of breaking the electroweak symmetry by the running of the Higgs quartic coupling without mass term is explored. It can be done by scalar fields with large couplings to the Higgs field and the model can be extended to be perturbative up to the Planck scale. Higgs self couplings are significantly enhanced and the deviation from…
Particle Physics Seminar, Matthew Baumgart, Carnegie Mellon, "De Sitter Wavefunctionals and the Resummation of Time"
Fri, Feb 27, 2015, 4:00 pm5:30 pm
The holographic RG of Anti-De Sitter gives a powerful clue about the underlying AdS/CFT correspondence. The question is whether similar hints can be found for the heretofore elusive holographic dual of De Sitter. The framework of stochastic inflation uses nonperturbative insight to tame bad behavior in the perturbation series of a massless…
Particle Physics Seminar, Yue Zhao, Stanford U."The Solution of (Little) Hierarchy Problem in AdS3/CFT2 Avatar"
Fri, Feb 20, 2015, 4:00 pm5:00 pm
There is an avatar of the (little) hierarchy problem of the MSSM in 3-dimensional supersymmetry. We propose a solution to this problem in AdS3. The generalization to AdS5 is possible which may have implication to Randall-Sundrum model. In the AdS3 toy model, the bulk theory is a supergravity theory in which U(1) × U(1) R-symmetry is gauged by…
Particle Physics Seminar, Matthew Low, U of Chicago, "TBA"
Fri, Feb 13, 2015, 4:00 pm5:00 pm
TBA

Particle Physics Seminar, Jack Kearney,FNAL "Explaining the "Inexplicable:" Achieving dark sector mass relations via renormalization group focusing."
Fri, Feb 6, 2015, 4:00 pm5:00 pm
As constraints on dark matter from direct detection, indirect detection and collider experiments become more stringent, many models of electroweak-scale dark matter must now exhibit very specific mass relations in the dark sector to remain viable. For instance, the dark matter may be close in mass to another state, permitting coannihilation with…
Particle Physics Seminar, Matthew Dolan, SLAC, "Measuring the Higgs Self-Coupling at the LHC”
Fri, Dec 19, 2014, 4:00 pm5:30 pm
The measurement of the Higgs trilinear self-coupling is an important part of the LHC Higgs program at 14 TeV, which directly interrogates the mechanism of electroweak symmetry breaking in the Standard Model. Directly probing the Higgs trilinear requires double Higgs production, and recent studies have uncovered a number of different ways this…
Particle Physics Seminar, Stefania Gori, Perimeter, "Illuminating Dark Photons with High-Energy Colliders"
Fri, Dec 12, 2014, 4:00 pm5:00 pm
The LHC and future high-energy colliders offer a unique sensitivity to dark photons (ZD), the mediators of a broken dark U(1) gauge theory that kinetically mixes with the Standard Model hypercharge. In this seminar, we discuss the possible interplay between direct searches of the dark photon arising from Drell-Yan production, and measurements of…
Particle Physics Seminar, Kiel Howe, Stanford, "Maximally Natural Supersymmetry and its Natural New Signatures"
Fri, Dec 5, 2014, 4:00 pm5:30 pm
Supersymmetric models with SUSY breaking by boundary conditions in a flat TeV-scale extra dimension avoid many of the problems of conventional MSSM-like models. A natural spectrum is easily realized by locality in the TeV sized direction, and the electroweak scale remains completely natural with stops and other superpartners above current LHC…
Particle Physics Seminar, Yoni Kahn, MIT, "Halo-independent methods for emerging dark matter signals"
Fri, Nov 21, 2014, 4:00 pm5:00 pm
The increasingly constraining null results of the LUX, XENON, and CDMS direct-detection experiments suggest that any future dark matter signal will begin with a trickle of events, rather than a flood. I will describe methods for analyzing direct-detection experiments which are independent of the velocity distribution of the dark matter halo, and…
Particle Physics Seminar, James Barnard, Melbourne, Composite Higgs models with “the works”
Fri, Nov 14, 2014, 4:00 pm5:00 pm
Several methods exist for realising dark matter and gauge coupling unification in composite Higgs models. I will give an overview of the most popular ideas, and show how they can be incorporated into complete, stand-alone models. I will then discuss how renormalisable, UV completions of these models may be constructed, and what the top-down…
Particle Physics Seminar, Yanou Cui, U of Maryland, "Detecting Boosted Dark Matter"
Fri, Nov 7, 2014, 4:00 pm5:00 pm
We initiate the study of novel thermal dark matter (DM) scenarios where the DM annihilation today produces boosted stable particles in the dark sector, which can be a subdominant DM component. The same annihilation in the early universe also sets the thermal relic abundance of the DM, and provides a natural, alternative way to preserve WIMP DM…
Particle Physics Seminar, Mikhail Solon, U of Chicago, "Standard Model anatomy of WIMP observables"
Fri, Oct 10, 2014, 4:00 pm5:00 pm
Given the multitude of WIMP candidates and search strategies, it is imperative to develop theoretical formalism to delineate the possible interactions of dark matter with known particles, making clear which uncertainties are inherently model dependent and which can, at least in principle, be improved by further Standard Model analysis. This…
Particle Physics Seminar, David Shih, Rutgers, "The SUSY Flavor Problem in EGMSB and Beyond"
Fri, Oct 3, 2014, 4:00 pm5:00 pm
The 125 GeV Higgs has motivated the study of SUSY models for large A-terms, in particular extended GMSB models with direct superpotential interactions between the messengers and MSSM fields. In this talk, I will describe an analysis of the flavor constraints on such models. Although they are not MFV, we will show how a combination of factors…
Particle Physics Seminar, Brian Henning, Berkeley, "What do precision Higgs measurements buy us?"
Fri, Sep 26, 2014, 4:00 pm5:00 pm
The exciting discovery of the Higgs boson finally gives us a chance to experimentally probe the strangest particle in the Standard Model. At the forefront of questions is whether or not there is new physics beyond the Standard Model that explains the unnatural and mysterious properties of the Higgs boson. In this talk, we examine the…
Particle Physics Seminar, William Shepard, "Wavelet Techniques for Jet Substructure"
Fri, Sep 19, 2014, 4:00 pm5:30 pm
Jet substructure techniques have great promise for improving the sensitivity of collider analyses, particularly searches for boosted decaying particles. I present a recent algorithm inspired by image processing techniques for the identification of boosted decaying SM bosons. I also discuss the possibility, still under development, of measuring…
Particle Physics Seminar: Eric Linder, "Dark Freedom, Early Universe Bounds, and Sky Surveys"
Fri, Sep 12, 2014, 4:00 pm5:30 pm
Large, deep sky surveys from galaxy mapping and CMB experiments can not only probe the cosmological parameters but the framework of the dark sector and the early universe. I discuss how galaxy spatial clustering can probe a free form inflationary power spectrum and strong lensing time delays can yield the Hubble constant. CMB results…