Research Projects

The main focus of the project will be to analyze some well motivated scenarios that go beyond the Standard Model (BSM) of particle physics, in the light of the upcoming data from LHC and other experiments. A very large fraction of such models have a scalar sector which is extended from that of the SM. In these models, the 125 GeV Higgs boson observed at the LHC happens to be one of the many scalars in the spectrum, while the others are yet to be discovered. One obvious way to test these scenarios will be to look for those extra scalars directly in the collider experiments. A complementary method will be to look for tiny but finite imprints of those heavier scalars in the low energy Higgs and flavor data. To this end, given the fact that LHC will soon be measuring Higgs couplings with unprecedented precision, we can severely constrain or even rule out many of the existing models for new physics. Both the direct search data as well as data on low-energy observables, which these scalars affect only through higher-order quantum corrections, will be useful for this. Thus the current project also has the potential to sort out the feasible set from a plethora of existing models and thereby can considerably narrow down our search for the ‘correct’ description of physics beyond the SM. As scalar extensions can also act as source of cold dark matter, both laboratory-based and astrophysical constraints will be needed to prune the huge set of models down. Apart from this, we also intend to propose new models with observational consequences at the electroweak scale. Several sophisticated extensions of the SM such as the left-right symmetric model and the 3-3-1 model leave behind a much simpler effective multi-Higgs structure at the electroweak scale. We will study these simpler structures in detail to identify distinguishing features that can shed light on the high energy behavior of the models. For instance, we may look for nonstandard scalars whose preferential decay modes can be a tell-tale signature of a more elaborate theory at a higher energy scale. We also plan to relate the structure of the scalar sector to the fermionic mass texture, and address the puzzle of fermion mass hierarchy. As has been explained in detail in the main document, there is a lot to be explored along these lines of research.

Beyond the Standard Model, Higgs Physics, Unification of forces, Flavor physics