New physics beyond the standard model
The standard model has been one of the greatest successes of 20thcentury physics. Over time and through experiments, it has been established as a well-tested theory explaining how a few elementary particles, the building blocks of matter, are governed by four fundamental forces. For physicists working on the EU-funded project THE TRUE PATH BEYOND (Finding the true path beyond the standard model), however, the success of the standard model was not something to dwell on. They saw this as an invitation to turn their attention to more fundamental questions. The discovery of the Higgs boson at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) completes the standard model. At the same time, it provided project physicists with stimulating probes of new physics such as the existence of more than one Higgs particle and extra spatial dimensions. Extra spatial dimensions emerged as a viable option for physics beyond the standard model and should be available to all fermions and bosons. Probing the existence of extra dimensions is one of the main tasks of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) and the corresponding models investigated were Kaluza-Klein theories. On the other hand, the Higgs sector could involve particles that interact with dark matter. Effective Higgs-particle mixing would offer a link between dark matter and the standard model, which can produce the dark matter relic density and render dark matter direct detection possible. Cosmological observations have verified that more than 84 % of matter in the Universe is formed by non-baryonic, not electromagnetically interacting matter. Physicists explored possible connections between dark matter and the standard model and if it is possible to solve outstanding problems such as neutrino mass and flavour. THE TRUE PATH BEYOND resulted in the identification of classes of models that can be tested in the near future. New information from experiments at LHC is expected to help physicists discover more of the bigger picture that includes the standard model along with new physics hidden deep in the subatomic world.
Keywords
Physics, standard model, Higgs boson, LHC, dark matter
