6th Rome Joint Workshop: Weird Theoretical Ideas

18 Dec 2017, 08:00 → 20 Dec 2017, 19:00 Europe/Rome

<span style="background-color:#ffff00;">High Energy Building, B. Touschek Auditorium and Seminar Room (1st floor)</span> (<br />Laboratori Nazionali di Frascati)

Antonio Davide Polosa (ROMA1), Enrico Nardi (LNF), Gennaro Corcella (LNF), Nazario Tantalo (ROMA2), Roberto Franceschini (ROMA3)

Aim of the workshop:

In spite of its consolidated experimental success, the Standard Model of particle physics falls short of describing all observed phenomena. Elegant and well motivated theoretical ideas, such as Supersymmetry, Technicolor or Grand Unification, have so far found no support from experimental results. The longed-for discovery of some kind of physics beyond the Standard Model, that could guide us to replace these ideas with new theoretical paradigms, has so far escaped all experimental efforts. Given this situation, any serious attempt to approach the incompleteness of the Standard Model from originally different and unconventional perspectives should receive proper consideration. Fearless exploration outside the box might provide more insights than lengthy struggles through standard thinking.
During this 3-day workshop we plan to review some recent attempts to approach fundamental physics issues from non standard perspectives. We plan to have only two or three talks each day and plenty of time to analyze jointly the good and bad of the various proposals, confront ideas and discuss.

Scientific Program and Speakers:

John Donoghue (Massachusetts U., Amherst)
"Quantum Field Theory for Gravity"

Gia Dvali  (LMU, ASC & MPI, Munich & NYU, CCPP, New York) 
"Classicalization"

Renate Loll (Radboud U., NL)
"Quantum Gravity, or: Give me (more) observables!"

 Matthew McCullough  (CERN)
"Hyperbolic Higgs, Clockwork and Relaxion"

Holger F.B. Nielsen (Bohr Inst.)
"Dark Matter, Double Supernova Neutrino Explosion,
Degenerate Vacua, Predetermination? Why the SM Group?"

Roberto Percacci  (SISSA)   
"Asymptotic Safety"

Eugenio Bianchi  (Penn State)
"Entanglement in Loop Quantum Gravity" 

Michael Spannowsky  (Durham U. & Durham U., IPPP)
"Higgsplosion, Higgspersion and Naturalness"

Alessandro Strumia (CERN & INFN Pisa & Pisa U.) 
"From LHC to Dimensionless Physics to Ghosts"

 

Monday, 18 December

10:00 → 11:00 `Hyperbolic Higgs', `Clockwork', `Relaxion'

Speaker: Matthew McCullough (CERN)

Slides McCullough.pdf

11:30 → 12:30 Higgsplosion, Higgspersion and Naturalness

Higgsplosion is a dynamical mechanism that introduces an exponential suppression of quantum fluctuations beyond the Higgsplosion energy scale and further guarantees perturbative unitarity in multi-Higgs production processes. I will review the calculations that indicate a factorial growth of the h* -> n h transition amplitude and will outline how such a growth leads to an exponential suppression of large particle virtualities. If realised in nature, Higgsplosion has astonishing consequences for the consistency of the Standard Model. I will discuss these consequences and will present phenomenological implications that could potentially lead to observation of Higgsplosion in future experiments.

Speaker: Michael Spannowsky (Durham U. & Durham U., IPPP)

Slides Spannowsky_Frascati.pdf

14:30 → 15:30 Classicalization

Speaker: Georgi Dvali

16:30 → 16:50 Coffee Break

Tuesday, 19 December

10:00 → 11:00 Quantum Field Theory for Gravity

Much of the community has been exploring exotic solutions for the UV completion of gravity. I am interested in exploring a different possibility, that of an asymptotically free quantum field theory. There are obstacles of course, and the talk will be a discussion of the problems and a possible pathway through them.

Speaker: John Donoghue

Slides Donoghue_Gravity_QFT_Frascati.pdf

11:30 → 12:30 Asymptotic Safety

Speaker: Roberto Percacci

Slides Percacci.pdf

14:30 → 15:30 Quantum Gravity, or: Give me (more) observables

Speaker: Prof. Renate Loll (Institute for Theoretical Physics, Utrecht University, The Netherlands)

Slides Frascati2017_Loll.pdf

16:30 → 16:50 Coffee Break

Wednesday, 20 December

10:00 → 11:00 From LHC to Dimensionless Physics to Ghosts

Speaker: Alessandro Strumia (PI)

Slides strumia.pdf

11:30 → 12:30 Entanglement in Loop Qiuantum Gravity

Speaker: Dr Eugenio Bianchi (Penn State University)

Slides Bianchi-Frascati-2017.pdf

14:30 → 15:30 Dark Matter, Double Supernova Neutrino Explosion, Predetermination? Why the Standard Model Group?

We propose a model for dark matter, which in principle ONLY uses the Standard Model, although it only works under the use of speculated NON-PERURBATIVE effects. In this model the dark matter consists of insect sized pearls or better bubbles made from a different phase of vacuum (``condensate vacuum'') consisting of a fluid of top and anti-top quarks - likely in the form of bound states of 6 top + 6 anti top quarks - pumped up by usual atoms under very high pressure to compensate the very strong surface tension of the bubbles. We take as fitted values of the size of the bubbles a diameter of 1 cm and a mass of $10^8$ kg, and correspondingly the distance between the individual bubbles is between our distance to the moon and to the sun. It is order of magnitude-wise very possible, that the energy gap between filled and empty single particle electron states should be of the order of a few keV's, and thus excitons with an energy making them able to produce the 3.5 keV X-ray line seemingly observed, and earlier suggested to come from dark matter are possible with our pearls. The energy needed to fit the intensity of the 3.5 keV observed - if it really is observed - matches very well with the energy produced by the UNIFICATION of our pearls - droplets - when they meet each other. Impacts - one about every century - would fit with causing the special type of volcanos called kimberlite pipes, of which there are about 6500 known on the earth. In the supernova SN1987A in the Large Magellanic Cloud there were observations of a controversial neutrino signal in Mont Blanc by LSD, about 5 hours before the main neutrino burst; this is speculated to be due to our pearls. Our dark matter picture is loosely coupled to our very long ago proposed philosophy of ``Random Dynamics'' hoping for the laws of nature to come out AUTOMATICALLY. Especially, the need for several vacua with same energy density - one of which to be the interior of the pearls - requires that at least coupling constants are in some way INFLUENCED from the FUTURE. Also we shall propose what is so special about the gauge group of the Standard Model, that precisely that group should have been chosen to be THE GROUP.

Speaker: Holger F.B. Nielsen

Slides nielsen.pdf

16:30 → 16:50 Coffee Break