The High Energy & Particle Physics Group
High Energy and Particle Physics at UC San Diego conducts research on all aspects of elementary particles and their interactions. At the forefront of scientific exploration, our dedicated researchers and cutting-edge facilities are committed to unraveling the fundamental mysteries of the universe. Experimental groups work on the CMS experiment at the LHC, the dark matter search experiments (XENON1T/nT, COSINE-100) at deep underground labs, and search for neutrinoless double beta decays (EXO-200/nEXO). Theorists work on many aspects including on phenomenology of the SM, flavor physics, theories beyond the Standard Model, string theory and string-motivated cosmology, collider and dark matter phenomenology, effective field theory, cosmic microwave background, cosmic neutrinos, and early universe cosmology. Experimental cosmology relevant to particle physics is pursued at UC San Diego as part of the Astrophysics & Cosmology group. Join us in our pursuit of knowledge that sparks technological revolutions, shapes industries, and paints a comprehensive portrait of the cosmos at its most elemental level.
EXPERIMENTAL PARTICLE PHYSICS AT UC SAN DIEGO
| Professors | CMS Experiment at LHC |
|---|---|
| Jim Branson | CMS Data Acquisition System; Electron and photon identification; Higgs → γγ observation |
| Javier Duarte | Measurements of high-momentum Higgs bosons; Searches for exotic physics beyond the standard model with jets; Machine learning algorithms for real-time trigger applications, detector reconstruction, computing acceleration, and anomaly detection; Selective persistency / partial event building for physics analysis (data scouting); CMS level-1 trigger upgrade including FPGA firmware development and hardware tests |
| Vivek Sharma | Measurements of the Higgs boson couplings to fermions and bosons, Rare Higgs decays, investigations of Higgs boson as a possible portal to the Dark Universe, and searches for Dark Matter pair production in proton-proton collisions. Detector activities include CMS Silicon Tracker operations and System integration activities for the Silicon Outer Tracker being constructed for the High Luminosity LHC era. |
| Frank Würthwein Avi Yagil |
Search for new physics and rare SM processes; Study Higgs couplings; distributed High Throughput Computing; Global data distribution networks; CMS visualization; Exploring applications of Machine Learning; Pattern recognition algorithms for charged particles; |
| Professors | Underground Dark Matter and Neutrino Experiments |
| Kaixuan Ni | XENON1T/nT dark matter search experiments at Gran Sasso Underground Lab in Italy; Light dark matter search with LBECA; The next generation DARWIN experiment; |
| Liang Yang | EXO-200 and nEXO experiments to search for neutrinoless double beta decay; COSINE-100 dark matter experiment; |
| Aobo Li | Machine Learning for Underground Dark Matter and Neutrino Experiments |
THEORETICAL PARTICLE PHYSICS AT UC SAN DIEGO
| Professors | Research Topics |
|---|---|
| R. Sekhar Chivukula | Electroweak and flavor symmetry breaking, physics beyond the standard model, collider phenomenology, and effective field theory. |
| Raphael Flauger | Quantum field theory, string-motivated cosmology, and Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) data analysis. |
| Daniel R. Green | Theoretical Cosmology: inflation and physics of de Sitter space; cosmic neutrinos and light relics; cosmic microwave background and large scale structure |
| Benjamin Grinstein | Electroweak interactions and flavor physics, with an emphasis on rare decays of hadrons as probes of new physics. Electroweak symmetry breaking. Dark matter detection. |
| Kenneth A. Intriligator | Quantum field theory. |
| Elizabeth Jenkins | Theoretical Particle Physics: Standard Model Effective Field Theory; Higgs boson physics; Symmetries in Quantum Field Theory; particle physics phenomenology |
| Julius Kuti | Nonperturbative theoretical studies of strongly coupled gauge theories and physics beyond the standard model. |
| Tongyan Lin | Dark matter, particle physics phenomenology, early universe physics and cosmology |
| Aneesh V. Manohar | Theoretical High Energy Physics |
| John McGreevy | Quantum field theory |
| Elizabeth H. Simmons | Physics of the origins of mass, collider signatures of physics beyond the standard model, model building and effective field theories |