Forces and gauge groups beyond the standard model
Name
922937687-MIT.pdf
Description
Full printable version
Size
14.27 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
7c08a52cb59000fe9f0f947949e457fc
Author(s)
Kahn, Yonatan Frederick
Advisor(s)
Jesse Diaz Thaler.
Date Issued
2015
Publisher
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Abstract
The discovery of the Higgs boson in 2012 completed the particle content of the Standard Model, but brought into sharp relief two outstanding problems: why is the Higgs so light, and what is the identity of 80% of the matter content of the universe? Neither appears to have an answer within the Standard Model. This thesis attempts to address these problems with the introduction of new forces and gauge groups. I investigate a model where dark matter interacts through a new massive U(1) gauge boson which kinetically mixes with the photon, and show how this model can be tested at neutrino experiments. Supersymmetry may explain the smallness of the Higgs mass compared to the Planck scale, but reconciling the measured value of 126 GeV with the absence of super-partners at colliders is difficult. By gauging various global symmetries of the Standard Model, I show that a variant of Higgsed gauge mediation called auxiliary gauge mediation can provide acceptable supersymmetric spectra. Finally, the astrophysical dark sector may be complicated, with many kinds of allowed interactions, and I describe techniques to diagnose the presence of dark matter at direct-detection experiments independent of its velocity distribution.
Description
Thesis: Ph. D., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Physics, 2015.
Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.
Includes bibliographical references (pages 145-162).
Subjects
Physics.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Physics
Terms of Use
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