Theoretical Physics

This award funds the research activities of Professors Maria Concepcion Gonzalez-Garcia, Patrick Meade, and Leonardo Rastelli at Stony Brook University. This award supports research in the fundamental laws of physics, and promotes progress in the scientific exploration of the universe. Its research will help guide the measurement and analyze the significance of results from a number of the world's leading laboratories and experiments, and will develop and explore novel concepts for the quantum field theories we use to understand matter and forces at the smallest scales and times as well as matter in its normal and extreme states. It will investigate new possibilities for future facilities in high-energy physics. This research is combined with training at the undergraduate, graduate, and postgraduate levels, and is leading to a broader vision of our world. It crosses disciplines within physics, and explores advanced methods in mathematical and data analysis. It serves the national interest through maintaining the nation's world-leading status in pure science and science education. Among quantum field theories, the Standard Model describes the known forces in nature aside from gravity, including the electromagnetic, weak, and strong forces. Quantum fields are also relevant to physics at all scales, and all phases of matter. Professor Rastelli's research is in the exploration of nonperturbative quantum field theory, pioneering new concepts in the exploration of the properties and the identification of self-consistent sets of possible theories. Current experimental results from high-energy accelerators like the Large Hadron Collider are generally in excellent agreement with predictions of the Standard Model, yet the Standard Model alone cannot explain phenomena like dark matter in cosmology, or the dominance of matter over antimatter. Professor Meade is developing strategies for detecting the limits of the Standard Model, and is a leader in efforts to explore the scientific potential and technical possibility of an unprecedented muon collider. Experiment shows that neutrinos in the Standard Model have the extraordinary ability to oscillate one into another. Professor Gonzalez-Garcia's program of the analysis of ongoing neutrino data is a strong support for progress in particle physics, astrophysics, and cosmology, and she is developing theoretical procedures for using precision measurements at the Large Hadron Collider to identify signs of new forces beyond the Standard Model. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.