SuperpartnerIn particle physics, a superpartner (also sparticle) is a class of hypothetical elementary particles predicted by supersymmetry, which, among other applications, is one of the well-studied ways to extend the standard model of high-energy physics. When considering extensions of the Standard Model, the s- prefix from sparticle is used to form names of superpartners of the Standard Model fermions (sfermions), e.g. the stop squark. The superpartners of Standard Model bosons have an -ino (bosinos) appended to their name, e.
Compact Muon SolenoidThe Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) experiment is one of two large general-purpose particle physics detectors built on the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN in Switzerland and France. The goal of the CMS experiment is to investigate a wide range of physics, including the search for the Higgs boson, extra dimensions, and particles that could make up dark matter. CMS is 21 metres long, 15 m in diameter, and weighs about 14,000 tonnes. Over 4,000 people, representing 206 scientific institutes and 47 countries, form the CMS collaboration who built and now operate the detector.
Goldstone bosonIn particle and condensed matter physics, Goldstone bosons or Nambu–Goldstone bosons (NGBs) are bosons that appear necessarily in models exhibiting spontaneous breakdown of continuous symmetries. They were discovered by Yoichiro Nambu in particle physics within the context of the BCS superconductivity mechanism, and subsequently elucidated by Jeffrey Goldstone, and systematically generalized in the context of quantum field theory. In condensed matter physics such bosons are quasiparticles and are known as Anderson–Bogoliubov modes.
SfermionIn supersymmetric extension to the Standard Model (SM) of physics, a sfermion is a hypothetical spin-0 superpartner particle (sparticle) of its associated fermion. Each particle has a superpartner with spin that differs by 1/2. Fermions in the SM have spin-1/2 and, therefore, sfermions have spin 0. The name 'sfermion' was formed by the general rule of prefixing an 's' to the name of its superpartner, denoting that it is a scalar particle with spin 0. For instance, the electron's superpartner is the selectron and the top quark's superpartner is the stop squark.
AxionAn axion (ˈæksiɒn) is a hypothetical elementary particle originally postulated by the Peccei–Quinn theory in 1977 to resolve the strong CP problem in quantum chromodynamics (QCD). If axions exist and have low mass within a specific range, they are of interest as a possible component of cold dark matter. As shown by Gerard 't Hooft, strong interactions of the standard model, QCD, possess a non-trivial vacuum structure that in principle permits violation of the combined symmetries of charge conjugation and parity, collectively known as CP.
Leonard SusskindLeonard Susskind (ˈsʌskɪnd; born June 16, 1940) is an American physicist, who is a professor of theoretical physics at Stanford University, and founding director of the Stanford Institute for Theoretical Physics. His research interests include string theory, quantum field theory, quantum statistical mechanics and quantum cosmology. He is a member of the US National Academy of Sciences, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, an associate member of the faculty of Canada's Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, and a distinguished professor of the Korea Institute for Advanced Study.
SuperpotentialIn theoretical physics, the superpotential is a function in supersymmetric quantum mechanics. Given a superpotential, two "partner potentials" are derived that can each serve as a potential in the Schrödinger equation. The partner potentials have the same spectrum, apart from a possible eigenvalue of zero, meaning that the physical systems represented by the two potentials have the same characteristic energies, apart from a possible zero-energy ground state.
Lie superalgebraIn mathematics, a Lie superalgebra is a generalisation of a Lie algebra to include a Z2grading. Lie superalgebras are important in theoretical physics where they are used to describe the mathematics of supersymmetry. In most of these theories, the even elements of the superalgebra correspond to bosons and odd elements to fermions (but this is not always true; for example, the BRST supersymmetry is the other way around).
Grand unification energyThe grand unification energy , or the GUT scale, is the energy level above which, it is believed, the electromagnetic force, weak force, and strong force become equal in strength and unify to one force governed by a simple Lie group. The exact value of the grand unification energy (if grand unification is indeed realized in nature) depends on the precise physics present at shorter distance scales not yet explored by experiments. If one assumes the Desert and supersymmetry, it is at around 1025 eV or GeV (≈ 1.
Naturalness (physics)In physics, naturalness is the aesthetic property that the dimensionless ratios between free parameters or physical constants appearing in a physical theory should take values "of order 1" and that free parameters are not fine-tuned. That is, a natural theory would have parameter ratios with values like 2.34 rather than 234000 or 0.000234. The requirement that satisfactory theories should be "natural" in this sense is a current of thought initiated around the 1960s in particle physics.
