Thesis

Dark matter at the LHC

• Call:

  IDPASC Portugal - PHD Programme 2019

• Academic Year:

  2019 / 2020

• Domains:

  Theoretical Particle Physics | Experimental Particle Physics

• Supervisor:

  Rui Santos

• Co-Supervisor:

  Antonio Onofre

• Institution:

  Faculdade de Ciências - Universidade de Lisboa

• Host Institution:

  Faculdade de Ciências - Universidade de Lisboa

• Abstract:

  The Higgs mechanism of mass generation acts as a unifying principle in model building. However, the number of models that could fit the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) data, and are well motivated, is very large. Even disregarding several theoretical issues like the ones related to fine-tuning, as is the case of the so-called hierarchy problem, the "new" Standard Model (SM) has to, at least, be able to settle the most striking disagreements with experimental data. There are urgent modifications to be made to the SM in order to get the right amount of observed cold Dark Matter and to accommodate the observed predominance of matter over anti-matter in the Universe for which we need to increase the amount of CP-violation in the model.  This work is about examining how the possible extensions of the scalar sector of the SM, that could solve those discrepancies, can be tested at the LHC and future colliders through the Higgs sector, and its connection with dark matter. The work will be performed in close collaboration with ATLAS experimentalists to devise the best strategies to adopt in order to acquire sensitivity to all such models.