Theoretical particle physics

Welcome to our group! 

We explore what lies beyond the Standard Model—the theory that describes all known particles and forces except gravity. Our goal is to build plausible, testable ideas for new physics and connect them directly to collider experiments and astrophysical observations.

Electroweak physics and the Higgs The Higgs field gives mass to fundamental particles, but it leaves us with a major puzzle: why is the Higgs mass so much lighter than the high-energy scales we expect to exist in nature? We develop models to answer this and we calculate how these theories can be tested at the Large Hadron Collider and future colliders, looking for clues like unique jet signatures or new top-quark interactions.

New physics through precision measurements We don't always need to produce new particles directly to discover them. Heavy, undiscovered particles can leave small footprints behind—tiny shifts in interaction rates or angular distributions. We use effective field theory (EFT) as a  toolkit to map these footprints. This allows us to systematically translate complex new physics into measurable predictions, ensuring different experimental searches can be compared.

Astrophysics and cosmology as laboratories Some of the strictest tests for new physics come from the stars. Extreme environments like white dwarfs, neutron stars, and supernovae are highly sensitive to weakly interacting particles—such as axions or light scalars—that are hard to produce on Earth. In our recent work, we study how these hidden fields can fundamentally change the properties of dense nuclear matter. We explore how they could allow for unusually heavy neutron stars, create measurable structural distortions in white dwarfs, or trigger phase transitions, giving us new ways to look for fundamental physics using telescopes and astrophysical data.

Gravity as an effective theory We also work on bridging the gap between quantum mechanics and gravity at accessible energies. We recently developed a complete framework that couples an effective field theory of gravity to the full Standard Model. This allows us to compute quantum corrections to General Relativity in a controlled way. With this toolkit, we can pinpoint exactly where small deviations from Einstein's theory might show up, whether in precision tests, cosmology, or gravitational-wave signals.

Across all these fundamental questions, our focus is on ideas that can be tested. The aim is simple: propose plausible new physics, make concrete predictions, and use both ground-based experiments and the cosmos to find the answers.