Research:

The theory group at UMass is active in research concerning physics from the largest scales of cosmology to the fundamental theory at the smallest scales. The following is a brief overview of the work that is presently going on. For more detail, please refer to the pages of the individual faculty members.

Gravity and String Theory

Profs. Kastor and Traschen work on the interface of gravity and string theory. String theory is the only known framework for a fundamental theory uniting gravity with the other basic interactions. It has proven to be an amazingly rich and subtle subject, and has attracted much interest in the field.

Cosmology

In the early universe, the fundamental interactions shaped the world that we see today. By studying astrophysical evidence we hope to work backwards to understand the physics that occurred at very early times. For example, from the Cosmic Microwave Background, we appear to be gathering evidence for an epoch of "inflation", possibly driven by elementary scalar fields. Profs. Sorbo and Donoghue perform research on this area.

Quantum General Relativity

There is a framework for studying quantum effects in general relativity which is valid at energies well below the Planck scale - it is described by an "effective field theory" Profs. Donoghue and Holstein are exploring the manifestation of quantum effects in the effective field theory.

Particle Phenomenology

The group has a long history of work on the phenomenology of particle physics. At present we are looking forward to a new era in which the Large Hadron Collider is expected to provide evidence for physics beyond the present Standard Model. Profs. Golowich and Donoghue are active in thinking about this new realm of physics.

Nuclear Physics

The techniques of effective field theory have allowed rigorous new approaches to the strong interactions - those which describe the elementary particles and the nuclei. At present the greatest interplay between theory and experiment comes at the interface of nuclear and particle physics. Prof. Holstein Holstein is actively exploring this rich field.

     Recent Publications from the Group