Phenomenology Beyond the Standard Model

For all its intellectual depth and empirical success, the standard model of fundamental interactions (including QCD, electroweak gauge theory, and minimally coupled gravity) has significant conceptual and esthetic shortcomings. There are also several observed or reliably inferred phenomena that the standard model does not address, e.g. the nature of cosmological dark matter. An important branch of theoretical physics is concerned with addressing these shortcomings by suggesting ways to augment the standard model. “Phenomenological” (jargon for “reality-based”) beyond-the-standard-model physics focuses specifically on questions that are sufficiently concrete and well posed that they will receive experimental illumination in the imminent future. An outstanding example is the possibility of weakly broken supersymmetry at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC); this is suggested by quantitative aspects of theories that unify the interactions, and if correct would lead to an extremely rich and informative flow of new discoveries, that will both call for and reward insight. Other examples are axion physics, many aspects of neutrino physics, and attempts to understand the patterns of quark and lepton masses and mixings.

Beyond-the-standard-model physics is eclectic: it takes inspiration from cosmology, quantum field theory, symmetry, and string theory as well as from experiment and observation. Many relevant CTP activities are mentioned in the separate descriptions of those areas. Wilczek’s involvement with unified supersymmetric models and with axion physics started with the initiation of these subjects, and continues.