Testing the limits : non-minimal extensions of popular beyond the standard model frameworks
Abstract/Contents
- Abstract
- While the Standard Model (SM) represents perhaps the most successful scientific theory ever constructed by humans, it is hardly complete. In the five decades since its inception, a number of intriguing extensions to the SM have been put forward by the physics community which might address questions that the SM leaves unanswered. In this thesis, we consider non-minimal extensions to several of the most popular frameworks for physics beyond the Standard Model (BSM): The Randall-Sundrum model of a warped extra dimension, the introduction of gauged flavor symmetries, and the vector portal/kinetic mixing paradigm for dark matter. Each of these models attempts to address a different unresolved problem within the SM: The Randall-Sundrum model naturally explains the enormous hierarchy between the gravitational and electroweak energy scales (the gauge hierarchy problem), while gauged flavor symmetries attempt to impose a structure on the intricate pattern of fermion masses and mixings present in the Standard Model, and vector portal/kinetic mixing models of dark matter represent a well-motivated subset of models of particle dark matter. In this thesis, we explore directions in which each of these BSM frameworks may be extended beyond their minimal constructions. In Chapter 2, we perform a detailed exploration of brane-localized kinetic terms, which may be added as additional parameters in Randall-Sundrum constructions, analytically identifying the values of these parameters which avoid spacetime instabilities or ghost-like (negative probability) states in the theory. In Chapter 3, we present a model in which a gauged flavor symmetry is incorporated into a Randall-Sundrum framework, and perform a detailed exploration of the resulting distinctive flavor phenomenology. In Chapter 4, we discuss a realization of the vector portal/kinetic mixing dark matter paradigm with a compactified extra dimension, in which the scalar which break the Standard Model electroweak gauge group and the scalar ``dark Higgs'' which breaks the additional dark-sector gauge symmetry proposed by this class of models are localized on opposite 3-branes, naturally eliminating phenomenologically concerning mixing between the dark and SM Higgs fields. In Chapter 5, we present a model which unifies the dark gauge group of vector portal/kinetic mixing models with an SU(3) gauged flavor symmetry, in which an additional fourth generation of matter particles serves as ``portal matter'', facilitating the kinetic mixing required by the dark matter paradigm. We then explore the phenomenology of this construction, noting that some behavior (such as portal matter fields decaying into conventional vector-like fermions) does not emerge in models that include portal matter or a gauged flavor symmetry alone, and will yield unique collider signatures.
Description
| Type of resource | text |
|---|---|
| Form | electronic resource; remote; computer; online resource |
| Extent | 1 online resource. |
| Place | California |
| Place | [Stanford, California] |
| Publisher | [Stanford University] |
| Copyright date | 2021; ©2021 |
| Publication date | 2021; 2021 |
| Issuance | monographic |
| Language | English |
Creators/Contributors
| Author | Wojcik, George Nicholas |
|---|---|
| Degree supervisor | Hewett, JoAnne L |
| Thesis advisor | Hewett, JoAnne L |
| Thesis advisor | Graham, Peter (Peter Wickelgren) |
| Thesis advisor | Peskin, Michael Edward, 1951- |
| Thesis advisor | Rizzo, Thomas |
| Degree committee member | Graham, Peter (Peter Wickelgren) |
| Degree committee member | Peskin, Michael Edward, 1951- |
| Degree committee member | Rizzo, Thomas |
| Associated with | Stanford University, Department of Physics |
Subjects
| Genre | Theses |
|---|---|
| Genre | Text |
Bibliographic information
| Statement of responsibility | George Nicholas Wojcik. |
|---|---|
| Note | Submitted to the Department of Physics. |
| Thesis | Thesis Ph.D. Stanford University 2021. |
| Location | https://purl.stanford.edu/mg542fs6328 |
Access conditions
- Copyright
- © 2021 by George Nicholas Wojcik
- License
- This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial 3.0 Unported license (CC BY-NC).
Also listed in
Loading usage metrics...