Abstract
This project is focused on the phenomenology of elementary particle physics at present high-energy facilities such as the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), at future colliders and in neutrino oscillation experiments. The project has four main research lines: 1) flavor physics; 2) Higgs, QCD and EW physics at the LHC and at future colliders; 3) the study of the proton structure; 4) models of BSM physics. The main objective of the project are the Precision Tests of the Standard Model and indirect searches for New Physics: improved SM predictions allow a stringent comparison with the experimental data and increase the significance of possible tensions; on the other hand, an interpretation of the latter requires either an effective theory formalism or the construction of explicit New Physics models.
The analysis of the rare decays of heavy quarks and the determination of the CKM matrix elements are at the core of the modern flavor-physics programme; they aim at constraining possible extensions of the SM or at identifying potential new physics signals, such as the recent anomalies in semileptonic B decays.
Precision Tests of the SM at colliders are pursued by means of state-of-the-art calculation for differential distributions of the Higgs boson, of gauge bosons as well as hadronic final states. These results require the development of advanced techniques for the evaluation of fixed-order corrections and the resummation to all orders of entire classes of corrections, by means of analytical or numerical algorithms.
A deeper understanding of the proton structure, in terms of parton distribution functions (PDFs), and including effect of higher-order QCD but also EW corrections, is a basic ingredient for the prediction of any observable at a hadron collider. Modern techniques based on Machine Learning are bringing a new perspective in the description of this system, as well as in the estimate of the associated uncertainties, both of experimental and theoretical origin.
The formulation of models extending the SM is crucial to investigate the open questions related to the Dark Matter, the strong CP problem and the precise phenomenology of the neutrino sector.