Exploring electroweak symmetry breaking and the nature of dark matter

Abstract

Dark matter phenomenology: competitive bounds from collider searches, direct detection and indirect detection have made the DM puzzle enticing. Ultralight DM can solve the cusp/core problem, however a thorough investigation of the self-interactions of ultralight scalar DM and their possible consequences is still needed. Specifically, I would like to calculate relic abundance in this set up and also explore the possibility of multicomponent DM. Furthermore I am interested in exploring the dark sector paradigm where first order phase transitions can occur. Such models could give useful links between DM and future gravitational wave detectors. Vector and Fermionic Resonances: searches for BSM vector resonances constitute a significant portion of the ATLAS and CMS exotica program. I would like to develop effective field theory descriptions for top partners and heavy vectors with the aim of visualizing in a concrete context the impact of current LHC searches and provide alternative search strategies for future. EFT formalism and Higgs: to test the validity of extensions of SM, precision Higgs phenomenology is of great interest. Complete characterization of Higgs production and decay and thus of the Higgs couplings is needed. There are several ways to modify Higgs potential; eg: higher order non-renormalizable operators. I am currently exploring regions of parameter space consistent with first order phase transitions, which can help us probe the quartic and cubic Higgs self couplings. Study of BSM physics using dimension 6 operators can be a very promising and prominent area of research in which continued investigation is one of my priorities. Holographic Models - Soft Wall Models: I am interested in understanding the contribution Higgs can get from spontaneous breaking of conformal invariance if it occurs at electroweak scales. In future, I would like to understand how the vacuum rearranges when the system passes through the QCD phase transition. It would certainly be worthwhile to investigate phenomenological consequences on flavor physics. Holographic Models - Warped SUSY: It seems likely that neither SUSY nor compositeness can completely solve the hierarchy problem in its most minimal form. A phenomenologically interesting solution can be a natural model of TeV-scale physics which can incorporate both SUSY and warped extra-dimension, which I plan to undertake in the future. These SUSY Randall Sundrum (RS) models can include R parity violation which can generate notorious operators which would need to be suppressed. It would be also useful to explore alternative methods for suppressing the proton decay and how the flavor problem can be solved here.