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Physics Beyond the Standard Model. Summary by Dennis Silverman Physics and Astronomy UC Irvine. Where Does Mass Come From?.
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Physics Beyond the Standard Model Summary by Dennis Silverman Physics and Astronomy UC Irvine
Where Does Mass Come From? • The electroweak “gauge” theory only has conserved currents for its weak charges if the W’s and Z are massless, like the photon is. It also helps if quarks and leptons are massless in the Energy. • To maintain this, but yet have physical masses, we fill the vacuum with some sludge. A particle’s mass is then proportional to the amount each particle couples to this sludge. • The sludge is the everywhere constant vacuum value of the neutral Higgs.
The Higgs Fields in the SM • Three extra Higgs fields, H+, H-, anti-H0 make up the extra component of the W and Z spins needed to make them massive. • The W’s have a mass of 81 GeV, and the Z of 90 GeV. • The H0 has a constant vacuum density, and can also make a physical particle.
How to Find the Higgs • The Higgs vacuum value is uniform, neutral, appears the same at all velocities, and undetectable – except for the fact that it gives mass to everything. • A particle’s mass is proportional to its coupling to the Higgs and therefore to its vacuum density. • The excitations of the Higgs is a real particle, predicted to be at about 115-130 GeV. • This should show up in the LHC in some rare decays. • It would have shown up at the Fermilab Tevatron, except that the intensity has not met expectations.
Increasingly General Theories • Grand Unified Theories of electroweak and strong interactions • Supersymmetry • Superstring Theories – 10 dimensions with gravity • Superstring Unification to M Theory
Running Coupling Constants • Charged particles have virtual quantum allowed clouds around them of photons and electron-positron pairs. • Colored particles have virtual gluons and q-anti-q pairs. • So the total coupling at long distance or “charge”, is different from the coupling at short distance, where the the cloud is penetrated. • Electromagnetic coupling 1 = e2/c increases with energy from 1/137 to 1/40 at 1017 GeV Unification Scale • Strong coupling 3 = g2/c decreases from ~1 to 1/40 • Weak coupling to W’s is 2. • So couplings come together at unification scale
Running Gluonic Coupling g3 g3 3 = (g3)2 /c
Fundamental Particles for Unification • Unification means that at a GUT scale, where masses can be ignored, all fundamental particles appear in the same multiplet. • This allows their charges to be the same or given fractions of each other, and accounts for the proton and electron charge being equal. • The particles from the SM to include for the first generation are the 16 (left handed): ur ug ub dr dg db anti-(ur ug ub dr dg db) e e- anti-e e+ • Recently, neutrino oscillations and mass were found, adding the anti-e. • In the GUT, there are vector bosons that take fundamental particles into another in the multiplet.
Sequence of GUTS • Standard Model of electroweak doublets for quarks and leptons plus photon (SU(2)xU(1)) and three colors (xSU(3)). It has , W±, Z, and 8 gluons as bosons. • Combine 3 colors and electroweak doublet (SU(5)) – ruled out as causes proton decay at level not seen – has 5 + 10 fundamental particles. It has 24 bosons. • Add extra neutrino mode for massive neutrinos – 16 fundamental (SO(10)) • There are 45 gauge bosons in SO(10). • 27 fundamentals (E6), including singlet quarks and neutrinos. • E7, E8 (heterotic string) • Three generations of each fundamental multiplet
A Bit of History of Unification • Electricity unified with magnetism (M. Faraday and J. C. Maxwell). • Relativity and General Relativity (A. Einstein). • Quantum Mechanics (Planck, Bohr, Schrodinger and Heisenberg). • Relativistic quantum mechanics (P. Dirac). • Quantum Electrodynamics (R. Feynman, Tomonaga, Schwinger). • Quarks and Quantum Chromodynamics (Nemann, M. Gell-Mann and G. Zweig). • Unification of Electromagnetism with Weak Interactions to form Electroweak theory (S. Weinberg, A. Salam). • Grand Unified Theories • Supersymmetry • Superstring Theory of Everything including gravity.
Proton Decay • In a GUT there are X and Y gauge bosons that can transform a quark into an antiquark, and a quark into a lepton, since they are in the same multiplet. • This allow protons in quarks to decay into a lighter pi or K meson and a lepton. • Don’t worry, the lower limit on the lifetime is 1034 years, far longer than the age of the universe of 1010 years. • It takes a detector the size of Super-K to see a few proton decays a year in these theories.
Proton Decay dr dr p0 anti-danti-r ug P Xanti-r ub e+
Particle Spin • Orbital angular momentum is quantized to integer units of Planck’s constant over 2: = h/2. • Quarks and leptons have half a unit of angular momentum as spin, or are spin 1/2 particles, also called fermions. • Photons and W’s and Z are spin 1 particles, also called bosons. • Gravitons have spin 2, and are bosons.
Particle Supersymmetry • In a Grand Unified Theory, all quarks and leptons are in a generation are united into one family. • The GUT gauge bosons transform one quark or lepton to another, such a gluon changing one color quark into another. • A grander symmetry would be to transform all gauge bosons to fermions with the same charges, and vice versa. • Thus for every spin ½ fermion there would be a spin 0 boson with the same charges and flavor, and to every gauge boson, there would be a like charged and coupled spin ½ fermion. • These look-alikes, except for spin, are called sparticles.
Conserved Supersymmetry • If supersymmetryness is conserved, sparticles can only be created or destroyed in pairs • Sparticles would then decay to the ordinary particles plus another sparticle, • until they reach the lightest supersymmetric particle (LSP) • The LSP should be neutral and is a leading dark matter candidate • They should have masses about 1 TeV • They should be produced in pairs at the LHC in 2007 • The Next Linear Collider (NLC) will be needed to map out the sparticles and Higgs interactions in detail.
Sparticle Names • Thus with quarks there would be spin 0 squarks • Leptons would have spin 0 sleptons (selectron and sneutrino) • The photon also would have a spin ½ photino • The W’s and Z’s would have spin ½ Winos and Zinos (after Wess and Zumino) • Spin 0 Higgs would have spin ½ Higgsinos • In a supergravity theory, spin 2 gravitons have spin 3/2 gravitino look-alikes.
Why Supersymmetry (SUSY)? • It’s believers think it is a beautiful symmetry between fermions and bosons, and should be a part of nature. • If the sparticles are at about 1 TeV, then the running coupling constants actually do meet at a GUT scale of 1017 GeV. • GUT scale (mass) Higgs’s would normally couple to the light SM Higgs and bring its mass up to the GUT scale. • Adding sparticles to particles cancel this coupling to leave the SM Higgs light, solving the so-called Heirarchy problem. • String Theory requires SUSY, again for similar cancellations.
Minimal SUSY Standard Model • The MSSM has two Higgs doublets, as opposed to the one in the standard model. • The doublets also have distinct anti-Higgs. • Thus there are 8 Higgs particles. • Three are “eaten” to make the W± and Z massive. • One makes the neutral mass generating Higgs. • Four more are observable, of which two are charged.
Evolution of Gauge Couplings (reciprocals) Standard Model Supersymmetry
What is String Theory? • It is the theory that elementary particles are really strings with tension, that obey relativity and quantum mechanics. • By dispersing the particle away from a point, it avoids infinities in the treatment of gravity or gravitons by pointlike particles. • The string size is close to the Planck size of 10-32 cm, which is the smallest size where gravity becomes strong. • To avoid “anomaly” infinities requires supersymmetry and 10 dimensions (1 time and 9 space dimensions). • String theory then provides a quantum theory of gravity. • Andre Neveu, John Schwarz, Michael Green and Pierre Ramond were founders.
Types of Superstring Theories • There are five superstring theories. • There is one open superstring theory with left (L) moving waves (SO(32)). • There are two closed superstring theories: • Type IIA: L-R parity symmetric • Type IIB: L only, parity violating • There are two heterotic string theories of a product of a string theory in 26 dim (with L moving waves) x a superstring in 10 dim (with R moving waves). • (SO(32)) and (E8 x E8).
Unification of Superstring Theories • Recently, in the second string revolution, it was discovered that there are transformations between all five superstring theories. (Ed Witten) • This means they are all views of a larger theory which is not well understood, but is called M theory. It may be in 11 dimensions. • For further information, see http://superstringtheory.com/, run by Patricia Schwarz, John Schwarz’s wife. • “The Elegant Universe” by Brian Greene, http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/elegant
Towards Verification of Superstring Theory • Since superstring theory included the three unified forces of GUTS and gravity, it has been called the Theory of Everything. • It has not been possible to “solve” superstring theory to find a unique physical model. • There are a half-million ways to topologically “compactify” the extra six dimensions to very short distances, and leave the four dimensional world that we live in. • So many GUTS and breakup paths of GUTS to the SM are still possible
Verification of Superstring Theory • The masses of sparticles are not well predicted. • If they are in the TeV range, they will appear in the LHC. • Once they are found, the NLC e+ e- collider will more precisely determine their properties. • The convergence of the running coupling strengths at a GUT scale is more successful with SUSY particles than in the SM. • If SUSY is found, it will be considered a success of string theory. If not found, it could spell its demise. • The lightest neutral SUSY particle (LSP) could be dark matter, and there are experiments to directly detect them, but they will take a while to reach large enough scale.
How do strings scatter? • Via the “pants” diagram, where two strings merge to one, and then go back to two.
Speculative Models of Extra Dimensions • Large Extra Dimensions and Branes • Early Unification with a Strong Gravity
Brane Solutions • String Theories have membrane solutions • The most used is that all our 4 dimensional world is a membrane in the 10 dimensional world. • Open string ends are attached to the membrane. • Quarks, leptons and interacting bosons for strong and electroweak particles are confined to the brane. • But gravitons as closed strings can leave the brane and spread out in the extra dimensions.
Large Extra Dimension Models • By experimental limits, extra dimensions could still be as large as 0.1 millimeter, and this will be tested by gravity, which behaves as F ~ M1 M2/ rn+2 for n extra dimensions, at r < R. • In these, gravity could become strong at 1 TeV and unify with the other forces there. (Nima Arkani-Hamed, Dimopoulos and Dvali) • The extra dimension could be curled up with 1 TeV excitations, or at the String or Planck Scale. • The former would show up in experiment at Fermilab or the LHC as invisible missing energy disappearing into the extra dimensions in excitations there, or as one micro black hole a second being produced.
Plane Extra Dimension • The extra dimension could be between two flat branes, one of which is physical, and one of which has gravity (unphysical brane). • The gravity field exponentially decreases from the unphysical to the physical brane. • Thus gravity appears weak to us on the physical brane, but is strong on the unphysical brane. • Called the Randall-Sundrum model. • The extra dimension models so far do not give GUT theories, spoiling the supersymmetry triumph of explaining the convergence of coupling constants at the GUT scale.
Relevance of Particle Physics • We are closer to accounting for some leftover matter, possibly requiring three generations of quarks and leptons. • We may someday account for inflation and dark matter (SUSY?) and dark energy. • We understand how the Sun shines through weak interactions. • We understand how color forces and quarks form nucleons. • We may soon find how a Higgs gives mass to everything”. • There may be Grand Unification to keep charges of everything the same and allow particle changing interactions. • We may have found a way to have gravity that is consistent with quantum mechanics.