Fundamental interaction | EPFL Graph Search

In physics, the fundamental interactions or fundamental forces are the interactions that do not appear to be reducible to more basic interactions. There are four fundamental interactions known to exist:

gravity
electromagnetism
weak interaction
strong interaction

The gravitational and electromagnetic interactions produce long-range forces whose effects can be seen directly in everyday life. The strong and weak interactions produce forces at minuscule, subatomic distances and govern nuclear interactions inside atoms. Some scientists hypothesize that a fifth force might exist, but these hypotheses remain speculative. Each of the known fundamental interactions can be described mathematically as a field. The gravitational force is attributed to the curvature of spacetime, described by Einstein's general theory of relativity. The other three are discrete quantum fields, and their interactions are mediated by elementary particles described by the Standard Model of particle physi

Composite Higgs as a Viable Scenario for Electro-Weak Symmetry Breaking

Jan Mrazek

This thesis presents a general discussion of the Composite Higgs scenario of Electro-Weak Symmetry Breaking (EWSB). We start by reviewing the Standard Model of Electro-Weak interaction, discussing its experimental tests and conceptual pitfalls. Emphasis is given to the effective field theory point of view. In particular, the inherent tension related to the stability of the Electro-Weak scale motivates us to explore the possibility of having the Higgs field emerging as a Nambu-Goldstone boson from a new strongly coupled sector. Our construction is to a large extent inspired by the picture of the long range dynamics of QCD. The main ingredients are the symmetry of the UV theory, the pattern of its spontaneous breakdown and the sources of explicit breaking. In QCD, the latter are provided by the light quark masses and by the electromagnetic interaction. In Composite Higgs models, the most relevant symmetry breaking couplings are those related to the generation of the third family quark Yukawas through partial compositeness. They generate a potential for the Higgs and thus trigger EWSB. The constraints on the scenario are exposed, with a particular emphasis on the composite Two Higgs Doublet Model (THDM). While a residual SO(4) symmetry is sufficient to ensure a realistic phenomenology in presence of a single composite Higgs doublet, an extended Higgs sector needs more symmetries. For two doublets we show how either CP or a ℤ2 symmetry can play this role and construct a model for each realisation relying on the SO(6)/SO(4) × SO(2) coset. Finally, we discuss the phenomenology of this scenario. In particular, we present de differences between an elementary and a composite THDM. We also conclude that composite fermions associated to the third family quarks seem to be the most promising experimental handles for these models. We discuss their discovery range at the LHC, and the possibility of measuring the structure of their couplings. This knowledge would allow important insight into the strong dynamics.

EPFL2011

Kinks in the angle resolved photoemission and inelastic x-ray spectra of high temperature superconductors

Jeff Graf

Though the high superconducting transition temperature (Tc) is the most interesting technological aspect of high temperature superconductors, the complex way in which the spin, lattice and electronic degrees of freedom interplay, makes them of the highest scientific interest. This is illustrated by their rich phase diagram characterized by a variety of exotic groundstate including; Mott insulating, pseudogap and high temperature superconductivity. One of the most serious barriers that has prevented our understanding of the mechanism of high temperature superconductors thus far is the lack of information on how low energy Landau quasiparticles result from an organization of real particles. This organization, often colloquially referred to as "dressing", is a fundamental general concept in physics that explains a variety of physical phenomena, such as exotic particle formations and phase transitions. The role of the lattice in this dressing is particularly controversial. Phonons are quanta of lattice vibration energy, and play a crucial role in conventional superconductivity. They provide an attractive interaction allowing the electrons to condensate in superconducting Cooper pairs. However, high temperature superconductivity in the cuprates in achieved through hole doping in an antiferromagnetic Mott insulator. In this case, the antiferromagnetic background, the strong coulomb repulsion and the anisotropic superconducting gap all suggest a marginal role of the phonons. In order to assess experimentally the exact role of the phonon, angle resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES) is the weapon of choice given its unique ability to probe the electronic structure of solids in an energy- and momentum-resolved manner. In this thesis, I will use ARPES to characterize the various form of dressing of the quasiparticles in the high temperature superconductor from the Fermi level all the way to the valence band complex. I'll show that when combined with isotope substitution and inelastic x-rays scattering, the strong electron-phonon interaction can be probed in vivid details. This thesis presents three fundamental results. 1) Using the isotope effect, the important and unusual role of the phonon is demonstrated, as well as the strong interplay between the magnetic and phonic degrees of freedom. 2) Using inelastic scattering, the intriguing interplay between the Fermi surface and the bond stretching phonon is exposed. And 3) By exploring the ARPES data up to high energy, two new energy scales at high binding energy as well as the spectral waterfalls phenomenon are revealed. When all these new elements are considered together, they clearly show the need to consider simultaneously the spin, lattice, Fermi surface topology and electronic degrees of freedom. The spectacular progress in ARPES techniques over the past two decades was critical for these results, and I will present in this thesis our current effort in pushing the techniques even further. In particular I'll present my efforts in building a laser based ARPES setup with a hemispherical analyzer and a spin resolved time of flight analyzer.

EPFL2008

Gravitational causality and the self-stress of photons

Giulia Isabella

We study causality in gravitational systems beyond the classical limit. Using on-shell methods, we consider the 1-loop corrections from charged particles to the photon energy-momentum tensor - the self-stress - that controls the quantum interaction between two on-shell photons and one off-shell graviton. The self-stress determines in turn the phase shift and time delay in the scattering of photons against a spectator particle of any spin in the eikonal regime. We show that the sign of the beta-function associated to the running gauge coupling is related to the sign of time delay at small impact parameter. Our results show that, at first post-Minkowskian order, asymptotic causality, where the time delay experienced by any particle must be positive, is respected quantum mechanically. Contrasted with asymptotic causality, we explore a local notion of causality, where the time delay is longer than the one of gravitons, which is seemingly violated by quantum effects.