
NSF Org: |
PHY Division Of Physics |
Recipient: |
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Initial Amendment Date: | August 26, 2009 |
Latest Amendment Date: | August 28, 2013 |
Award Number: | 0855561 |
Award Instrument: | Continuing Grant |
Program Manager: |
Keith Dienes
kdienes@nsf.gov (703)292-5314 PHY Division Of Physics MPS Directorate for Mathematical and Physical Sciences |
Start Date: | September 1, 2009 |
End Date: | August 31, 2015 (Estimated) |
Total Intended Award Amount: | $1,350,000.00 |
Total Awarded Amount to Date: | $1,350,000.00 |
Funds Obligated to Date: |
FY 2010 = $270,000.00 FY 2011 = $270,000.00 FY 2012 = $270,000.00 FY 2013 = $270,000.00 |
History of Investigator: |
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Recipient Sponsored Research Office: |
426 AUDITORIUM RD RM 2 EAST LANSING MI US 48824-2600 (517)355-5040 |
Sponsor Congressional District: |
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Primary Place of Performance: |
426 AUDITORIUM RD RM 2 EAST LANSING MI US 48824-2600 |
Primary Place of
Performance Congressional District: |
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Unique Entity Identifier (UEI): |
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Parent UEI: |
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NSF Program(s): | Elem. Particle Physics/Theory |
Primary Program Source: |
01001011DB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT 01001112DB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT 01001213DB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT 01001314DB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT |
Program Reference Code(s): |
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Program Element Code(s): |
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Award Agency Code: | 4900 |
Fund Agency Code: | 4900 |
Assistance Listing Number(s): | 47.049 |
ABSTRACT
Current understanding of high energy physics is embodied in the Standard Model (SM). According to that theory, protons and neutrons, along with all other strongly interacting particles, are composed of even more fundamental particles called partons (quarks and gluons). Interactions between the partons are described by the theory of Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD). The proposed research involves continued refinement in understanding the interplay between QCD theory and experiment, which is necessary to deepen the understanding of QCD and to determine the probability distributions of the partons in the proton by global analysis. The resulting CTEQ Parton Distributions are essential to the interpretation of experiments at the world's leading high energy collider facilities: Fermilab (Batavia, IL), DESY (Hamburg, Germany), RHIC (Brookhaven, NY), and CERN (Geneva, Switzerland). The Electroweak sector of the SM is extremely successful in explaining and predicting experimental data spanning a range in energy from the atomic scale to the Z boson mass.
However, one major aspect of the model remains to be elucidated: the mechanism of Electroweak Symmetry Breaking (EWSB), which generates masses for the W and Z bosons while leaving electromagnetic gauge symmetry intact. In the SM, EWSB is economically implemented through a single scalar particle called the Higgs boson. However, the SM cannot explain observations such as the hierarchical pattern of fermion masses, or the existence of dark matter; so it is widely believed that new measurements at very high energies, or very high precision, will soon turn up deviations from the SM that will point to new physics.
A second part of the project represents continuation of research to probe the EWSB mechanism in high energy collisions. Special consideration is given to measuring the couplings of the top quark to W and Z gauge bosons and to (elementary or composite) Higgs boson(s); and to searching for the Higgs boson and determining its properties. These are prime objectives of experiments at the Fermilab Tevatron collider and the CERN Large Hadron Collider (LHC).
The broader impacts of this project are as follows: The achievement of the project will contribute to understanding of the fundamental interactions in Nature. The project trains graduate students and postdoctoral fellows in theoretical high energy physics at MSU and at the CTEQ summer schools. It also provides opportunities for undergraduate students to participate in research through the REU program, and for high school teachers and middle school students to experience forefront research through Summer programs sponsored by MSU and the State of Michigan.
PUBLICATIONS PRODUCED AS A RESULT OF THIS RESEARCH
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PROJECT OUTCOMES REPORT
Disclaimer
This Project Outcomes Report for the General Public is displayed verbatim as submitted by the Principal Investigator (PI) for this award. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this Report are those of the PI and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation; NSF has not approved or endorsed its content.
The project supported by this award concerns basic research on the fundamental particles and fields, and their interactions, as explored by theory and experiments in high energy physics.
Intellectual Merit:
The main outcomes of this award, covering the entire life of the award (07/01/2009 – 08/31/2015), consists of two parts and are summarized as follows.
CTEQ-TEA (CT) PDFs
Current understanding of high energy physics is embodied in the Standard Model (SM). Protons and neutrons, and all other strongly interacting particles, are composed of fundamental particles called partons (quarks and gluons). Interactions between the partons are described by the theory of Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD). The research projects supported by this award involve the interplay between QCD theory and experimental data from many experiments, including recent experiments at the CERN Large Hadron Collider (LHC). This global analysis of data is necessary to deepen the understanding of QCD, and to determine the probability distributions of the partons inside the proton. The resulting “CTEQ (CTEQ-TEA) Parton Distribution Functions (PDFs)” have been essential to the interpretation of experiments at the world’s leading high energy collider facilities: Fermilab (Batavia, IL), RHIC (Brookhaven, NY), DESY (Hamburg, Germany), and CERN (Geneva, Switzerland). With that, we continue our world-leading contributions to enable making precision predictions on collider phenomenology and precise determination of the SM parameters at lepton-hadron and hadron-hadron colliders, relevant to the High Energy Physics and Nuclear Physics communities.
One of the main outcomes of this award includes the first next-to-next-to-leading order PDF analysis performed by the CTEQ-TEA group. The resulting PDF sets are called CT10 PDFs which have been widely used by High Energy Physics and Nuclear Physics communities around the world, and they were made available to the public via the web site http://hep.pa.msu.edu/cteq/public/ct10.html
Resummation portal at MSU: ResBos
Transverse momentum (or QT) resummation generalizes the conventional collinear factorization in QCD theory for hadronic processes to calculate both normalization and shape of particle distributions produced at hadron colliders such as the LHC. Since its conception in the late 1970's, QT resummation has been successfully applied to study all-order structure of hadronic differential distributions and provide excellent predictions for a variety of experiments. With this award, we have further developed the QT resummation methods for collider processes relevant to the phenomenology of weak gauge (W and Z) bosons, Higgs boson, photon pairs, and New Physics particles (such as W-prime and Z-prime bosons). They have been implemented in the ResBos code, which has been widely used by High Energy Physics and Nuclear Physics communities around the world, which is made available to the public via the web site http://hep.pa.msu.edu/resum.
Broader Impact:
This award contributes to understanding the fundamental interactions of Nature. This project trained graduate students and postdoctoral fellows in theoretical high energy physics at MSU, and at the CTEQ summer schools. It also provided opportunities for undergraduate students to participate in forefront research through the REU program, and for high school teachers and middle school students to experience physics through summer programs sponsored by MSU and the State of Michigan.
Last Modified: 11/20/2015
Modified by: Chien-Peng Yuan
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