Studies of supersymmetric and non-supersymmetric models: Development of FlexibleSUSY and phenomenological applications

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Dominik Stöckinger
• Subject Area: Nuclear and Elementary Particle Physics, Quantum Mechanics, Relativity, Fields
• Term: since 2011
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 190169142

The forthcoming decade of elementary particle physics will be dominated by experiments at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN, allowing more and more accurate measurements of physics at the energy scale of electroweak symmetry breaking and the TeV-scale. At the same time a number of smaller experiments investigate specific, complementary observables such as the anomalous magnetic moment of the muon and electric dipole moments. Taken together, these experiments allow progress towards answering fundamental questions: What is the underlying dynamics of electroweak symmetry breaking/of the Higgs field and Higgs boson, and are there deviations from the ``Standard Model'' predictions? What is the origin of ``flavour'', i.e. the three generations of quarks and leptons/is there new physics in this sector? What is the origin of the baryon-antibaryon asymmetry in theuniverse/are there additional sources of the responsible CP-violation?Apart from the forthcoming experiments, progress in theory is required in order to interpret measurements in different scenarios for physics beyond the Standard Model. In this way candidates for new theories can be tested, falsified or narrowed down. The present project focuses on the computer program package FlexibleSUSY. FlexibleSUSY constitutes a versatile tool for precision-investigations of new physics models. It is a generic, model-independent code which produces compiled programs forconcrete models. The program was developed during the first funding period, and the second funding period was devoted to adding important functionality: the new functions include high-precision predictions of Higgs boson masses in supersymmetric theories (both in minimal and non-minimal models) and the computation of decays, particularly Higgs boson decays. In the computations of all quantities strong emphasis is put on high precision - this implies taking into account higher orders in perturbation theory and optimal choices of renormalization schemes and computational strategies.During the third funding period the functionality and precision of FlexibleSUSY will be further improved and extended. Computations of Higgs boson masses will be done at even higher orders, and additional kinds of decay processes will be computed at higher precision. While the range of possible models is already very large, we plan to treat particularly important models in a special way and implement and publish dedicated codes with higher precision predictions. Furthermore, predictions for electric dipole moments and flavour-changing processes will be implemented, to allow testing predictions for CP-violation and flavour physics in many models against experimental results.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants