PhD Project Ideas on Beyond Standard Model Physics

[Ramtin123]

Hi,

I have just started a PhD on Beyond SM physics. I had a chat with my supervisor, and he told me to look around to find out what sort of topics interest me.

Is there any good idea about a good PhD topic on BSM?

I appreciate any ideas...

 

[JorisL]

Well what interests you?
Strings, loops, something else?
Phenomenology, cosmology, ...?

You have to narrow it down and check out some reviews on whatever interests you.

 

[Ramtin123]

Thanks JorisL, I need to clarify it a bit more...

I cannot consider topics on string or quantum gravity as my supervisor is not a specialist in these areas.
I have no interest in a purely phenomenological project...
I am personally very interested in applications of BSM in cosmology...

Again any good ideas appreciated...

 

[JorisL]

What is his area of expertise? Can you look up topics of previous PhDs he supervised?

 

[Ramtin123]

He is on the borderline between a theoretical physicist and a phenomenologist, and works on the perturbative BSM (not string, QG, …)

He had another PhD student who worked on “scale invariant Lagrangians”, but he believes there is not much work to do on this topic anymore…

He suggested me to work on “diphoton coupling” but this is not even experimentally confirmed, and he agreed that it was a bit early to work on this topic…

So he suggested me to look around and find some other topics that interest me…

 

[JorisL]

So he works on stuff like supersymmetric extensions of the standard model?

You might be interested in MSSM https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimal_Supersymmetric_Standard_Model
I found this review http://arxiv.org/abs/hep-ph/9606414 that might be of interest.

 

[strangerep]

@Ramtin123 : I'd suggest you try not to select a topic that's too far from your supervisor's immediate interests. Ideally, a potential supervisor should offer a (written) list of questions to which he'd like to know the answers, rather than broad topics. I also hope you discuss things with more than one potential supervisor.

I made the mistake twice(!) of youthfully venturing too far from my supervisors' immediate interests, and twice it didn't end well.

 

[Ramtin123]

So he works on stuff like supersymmetric extensions of the standard model?

You might be interested in MSSM https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimal_Supersymmetric_Standard_Model
I found this review http://arxiv.org/abs/hep-ph/9606414 that might be of interest.

Thanks @JorisL. I found interesting ideas there...

 

[Ramtin123]

@Ramtin123 : I'd suggest you try not to select a topic that's too far from your supervisor's immediate interests. Ideally, a potential supervisor should offer a (written) list of questions to which he'd like to know the answers, rather than broad topics. I also hope you discuss things with more than one potential supervisor.

I made the mistake twice(!) of youthfully venturing too far from my supervisors' immediate interests, and twice it didn't end well.

Thanks @strangerep. I agree... it is a better idea to think about questions rather than broad topics...
I am talking to other faculties as well, but unfortunately my choices are very limited here...

 

[bapowell]

A huge part of getting a PhD and maturing as an independent researcher is to develop this skill on your own. It's challenging, but learning how to identify the interesting questions is greatly rewarding, and necessary if you hope to survive on your own after you graduate. Asking people for research topics is easy but not helpful.

 

[Ramtin123]

A huge part of getting a PhD and maturing as an independent researcher is to develop this skill on your own. It's challenging, but learning how to identify the interesting questions is greatly rewarding, and necessary if you hope to survive on your own after you graduate. Asking people for research topics is easy but not helpful.

Well, I don't like this comment. Please read the question and previous comments before commenting...
Defining a suitable topic for a PhD is the responsibility of the supervisor; but it will be very helpful if other experts can give any ideas about a potential PhD project topic, as I cannot reach to any good agreement with my supervisor.

 

[Vanadium 50]

Well, I don't like this comment.

Pity, because it was spot on.

 

[strangerep]

A huge part of getting a PhD and maturing as an independent researcher is to develop this skill on your own. It's challenging, but learning how to identify the interesting questions is greatly rewarding, and necessary if you hope to survive on your own after you graduate. Asking people for research topics is easy but not helpful.

Tbh, I too am surprised by this remark. A student beginning a PhD is, by definition, not "mature as an independent researcher".

Your 2nd sentence is probably true only after one completes a PhD (though it can sometimes take longer).

If a beginning PhD student is not allowed to ask others for advice about topics, then wtf is the supervisor for?

 

[bapowell]

Tbh, I too am surprised by this remark. A student beginning a PhD is, by definition, not "mature as an independent researcher".

You misquoted me. The "ing" at the end of the word "mature" is kind of important. Being handed a project by an advisor or anyone else is not constructive in my experience.

 

[atyy]

You misquoted me. The "ing" at the end of the word "mature" is kind of important. Being handed a project by an advisor or anyone else is not constructive in my experience.

But maybe at least a pointer in some broad direction?

Here's an interesting anecdote http://arxiv.org/abs/1407.1855
"7. KGW: I met with Murray Gell-Mann to get a thesis problem, and he suggested a problem. And I thought there was no way I was working on that. So he had to come up with another one, and it didn't take him very long. The thing that impresses me most about Murray Gell-Mann when I think back on it, is how quickly he got things done. I have never met anybody who could do things as fast as he could. And so it didn't take him very long to come up with another problem for me to work on. And so he asked me to think about an equation, which was called the Gell-Mann-Low equation, and it was an equation which was of interest to him for what he would call low energy phenomena. The first thing I did with that equation was study it in the limit of high energies, the exact opposite limit to anything he was interested in. As I said, it was a small problem, but it led over ten years to larger and larger problems and to some of the key publications, in fact including the publication that was cited for the Nobel prize. But I did it by working my way from small to large, not from starting at the large from the beginning."

 

[twistor]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massive_gravity

It´s an interesting topic, since it has interaction with high energy physics, cosmology (both theoretical and observational) and potentially also with beyond the standard model physics.

Hope you find it useful. :D

 

[MathematicalPhysicist]

A huge part of getting a PhD and maturing as an independent researcher is to develop this skill on your own. It's challenging, but learning how to identify the interesting questions is greatly rewarding, and necessary if you hope to survive on your own after you graduate. Asking people for research topics is easy but not helpful.

I don't see the need in a supervisor in that case really.

 

[bapowell]

I don't see the need in a supervisor in that case really.

Really? You see no room for a supervisor short of handing a project to a student? None at all?

 

[MathematicalPhysicist]

If the student is supposed to look for interesting questions by himself then what is the use of the supervisor?

What is the task of the supervisor?

If I am supposed to do all the research by myself and choose the questions that interest me and seem important, what does the supervisor do?

Unless the supervisor knows which problems are important, I don't see what the supervisor can contribute?

 

[bapowell]

The supervisor answers questions, suggests approaches to solutions when the student is having difficulty, gives advice on the viability/promise of a particular research direction, advises the student on career path, advocates for the student within the research community, etc. In my opinion the role of the supervisor is not to say "calculate such and such for your PhD".

Of course, everyone has different experiences and supervisors run the gamut from absentee to over-controlling. Most people, unless they had an awful time during their PhD studies, will believe that their supervisor's involvement was at the appropriate level. The varied opinions in this thread are evidence of that.

But looking at it objectively, I think there is something healthy about spending the first year of a PhD getting to know what's out there, trying to find the unanswered but interesting questions. Sure, the supervisor should give you a ballpark (study inflation, study brane theory, etc) and then the student should begin voraciously digesting papers, talking to others, etc to get acquainted with the field and to stimulate and hone their own interests. I just find it odd for a student to be told by others what interests him.

 

[strangerep]

You misquoted me. The "ing" at the end of the word "mature" is kind of important.

I don't think that changes the essence of my remark. The maturing would take place during the process of working towards the PhD, not at the very beginning.

Being handed a project by an advisor or anyone else is not constructive in my experience.

Perhaps it depends on the student. Personally, I prefer the approach of being offered some well-articulated questions rather than broad topics or canned narrow projects, since that means the supervisor does at least have a more detailed knowledge of the specific area and it's not just a peripheral interest.

 

[martinbn]

I had a chat with my supervisor, and he told me to look around to find out what sort of topics interest me.

The way I see it, he didn't ask you to find a specific project to work on, but to figure out which topics are intersting to you. May be after that he will give a problem within that topic or guide you into finding some.

 

[houlahound]

What may I ask is phenomenology initially mentioned, is that fancy talk for experimental??

As a research topic I would look at where particles get all collective in their behavior like Bose-Einstein condensates.

Or look for a topic employable outside of academia like making really fast switches.

I think students should go to the supervisor with question topics not the other way around.

 

[intervoxel]

An overlooked but promising area is the cellular automaton model, where perfect conservation of properties is possible and is hopefully capable of unifying the four forces.

 

[JorisL]

What may I ask is phenomenology initially mentioned, is that fancy talk for experimental??

It means one starts to look at specific properties the particles have (roughly). Which masses do they have, which charge and so on.

 

[Ramtin123]

But maybe at least a pointer in some broad direction?"

This is exactly my point.

But I did it by working my way from small to large, not from starting at the large from the beginning."

I like this phrase very much.

 

[Ramtin123]

Tbh, I too am surprised by this remark. A student beginning a PhD is, by definition, not "mature as an independent researcher".

Your 2nd sentence is probably true only after one completes a PhD (though it can sometimes take longer).

If a beginning PhD student is not allowed to ask others for advice about topics, then wtf is the supervisor for?

100% agree :)

 

[Ramtin123]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massive_gravity

It´s an interesting topic, since it has interaction with high energy physics, cosmology (both theoretical and observational) and potentially also with beyond the standard model physics.

Hope you find it useful. :D

Very interesting theory...

 

[Aziz Bhatti]

As the masses of Fermions cannot be predicted with in standard model, you might find Fermions mass problem in particular neutrino mass generation mechanism, as neutrino can be thought of as dark matter candidate and also has important role in inflation etc. It might also help you to work in cosmology later on...

 

[haushofer]

Very interesting theory...

These are great notes:

http://arxiv.org/abs/1105.3735

 

[Ramtin123]

As the masses of Fermions cannot be predicted with in standard model, you might find Fermions mass problem in particular neutrino mass generation mechanism, as neutrino can be thought of as dark matter candidate and also has important role in inflation etc. It might also help you to work in cosmology later on...

Thanks Abdul Aziz, Fermion masses problem seems really interesting. I also went through your nice PhD thesis about this problem in GUT’s. But I’m not sure about your idea of connecting Neutrino masses to cosmology brother… Do you mean one can find a cosmological mechanism during inflation or due to DM, to determine neutrino mass?

 

[kdv]

I have a question about the paper that haushofer mentioned. In the paper, the author states that

Moving on to helicity 2, the required gauge symmetry is linearized general coordinate invariance. Asking for consistent self interactions leads essentially uniquely to GR and full general coordinate invariance .

I am not sure what this means. If we quantize GR, I know of course that we end up with a massless spin 2 graviton. Here, we treat the metric as a quantum field so it is clear that general covariance leads to a gauge symmetry in the quantum theory we obtain. But let's say with start with quantizing a spin 2 classical field in a flat spacetime. We may have a gauge symmetry which priori has nothing to do with spacetime coordinate transformation and general covariance. Is the author saying that consistency of a massless spin 2 theory automatically leads to a condition on the spacetime it evolves through? Even if initially the spin 2 particle has nothing to do with a metric? Or am I completely missing the point?
Thanks in advance.

 

[Ramtin123]

These are great notes:

http://arxiv.org/abs/1105.3735

Thanks... really great notes.