Research

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN is leading the exploration of the high-energy frontier. Its high-luminosity phase is just around the corner and the validity of our current theory of elementary particles, the Standard Model (SM), will be probed to an unprecedented level. The hunt for physics beyond the SM will be pursued via direct searches of new particles that are light enough to be produced at the LHC. At the same time new physics could manifest itself indirectly through deviations from SM theoretical predictions, induced by new particles whose masses are well above the scale probed by the LHC. The success of indirect searches requires the highest possible level of precision in three complementary components: experimental data, theoretical predictions and – crucially – a robust framework to globally interpret all subtle deviations from the SM predictions that might arise.

The PBSP team will provide such a framework by:

1. Quantitatively establishing whether high-scale new physics effects can be mimicked by low-scale non-perturbative physics, and therefore inadvertently absorbed into the parametrization of the proton structure.

2. Devising a new framework to deliver a global fit of a model-independent parametrization of high-scale new physics, including several datasets that provide complementary experimental information.

3. Expanding such a framework to exploit the precise LHC measurements to constrain simultaneously the structure of the proton and new physics degrees of freedom.

PBSP involves several areas of particle physics, ranging from fits to the proton’s structure to effective quantum field theories and a comprehensive study of beyond the SM phenomenology. PBSP will demonstrate that the interplay between indirect new physics searches and the knowledge of the non-perturbative structure of colliding protons is essential to fully exploit the LHC physics potential.