Particle Physics

Neutrinos are the big unknown in Particle Physics. Since their very beginning they behaved strangely. However, in the last decade experiments were able to solve some of their secrets. The talk will review the current experimental status of neutrino experiments and give an outlook on future activities.

Kilometer-scale neutrino detectors such as IceCube are discovery instruments covering nuclear and particle physics, cosmology and astronomy. Examples of their multidisciplinary missions include the search for the particle nature of dark matter and for additional small dimensions of space. In the end, their conceptual design is very much anchored to the observational fact that Nature produces protons and photons with energies in excess of 1020 and1013 electronvolts, respectively. The cosmic ray connection sets the scale of cosmic neutrino fluxes. The problem has been to develop a robust and affordable technology to build the kilometer-scale neutrino detectors required to do the science. The AMANDA telescope using clear deep Antarctic ice as a Cherenkov detector of muons and showers initiated by neutrinos of all 3 flavors, has met this challenge. We review the results obtained with more than 10,000 well-reconstructed neutrinos in the 50 GeV~500 TeV energy range collected during its first 5 years of operation. More importantly, we will show that AMANDA represents a proof of concept for the ultimate kilometer-scale neutrino observatory, IceCube, now under construction.

The TeV energy range is a privileged part of the EM spectrum for astrophysical observations, allowing a view of some of the most energetic processes in the Universe, in objects as diverse as supernova remnants and black-hole driven Active Galactic Nuclei. Driven by new instruments, TeV gamma-rays astrophysics has made enormous strides in recent years with the discovery of many new sources, including new classes of sources such as galactic micro-quasars. This talk will give an overview of the state of TeV gamma-ray astrophysics, including the air Cherenkov technique used by ground-based TeV gamma ray detectors, the new instruments in operation or coming on line soon, and some of the results already obtained.

From the Quantum Field Theory point of view, matter and gauge fields are generally expected to be localised around branes (topological defects) occurring in extra dimensions. I will discuss a simple scenario where, by starting with a five dimensional SU(3) gauge theory, we end up with several 4-D parallel braneworlds with localised 'chiral' fermions and gauge fields to them. I will show that it is possible to reproduce the electroweak model confined to a single brane, allowing a simple and geometrical approach to the hierarchy problem. Some nice results of this construction are: Gauge and Higgs fields are unified at the 5-D level; and new particles are predicted: a left-handed neutrino (with zero-hypercharge) and a massive vector field coupling together the new neutrino to other leptons.

Up to 90% of matter in the Universe could be composed of heavy particles, which were non-relativistic, or 'cold', when they froze-out from the primordial soup. I will review current searches for these hypothetical particles, both via elastic scattering from nuclei in deep underground detectors, and via the observation of their annihilation products in the Sun, galactic halo and galactic center. The emphasis will be on most recent results, and on comparison with reaches of future particle colliders, such as the LHC and ILC.

I review our recent work on confinement in 2+1 Yang Mills theory using Karabali-Nair variables. I'll discuss our successful prediction of the glueball spectrum, including the manifestations of the QCD string.