Physics beyond the Standard Model

Physics beyond the Standard Model investigates particles, interactions, and phenomena not explained by the Standard Model, using theoretical models and experimental tests.

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Dark matter: Matter inferred from gravity that does not emit, absorb, or reflect detectable light. Its gravitational effects imply a cosmic component absent from the Standard Model.
Supersymmetry: A proposed symmetry relating bosons and fermions by pairing each with a partner of opposite statistics. It predicts new partner particles and can stabilize the Higgs mass.
Large Hadron Collider: A particle accelerator at CERN that collides protons and heavy ions at high energies. Its collisions test for new particles and deviations from Standard Model predictions.
Standard Model: The quantum field theory describing known elementary particles and three fundamental interactions. It supplies the successful baseline that proposed new physics must extend or challenge.
Baryogenesis: The set of processes that could have produced the universe's excess of baryons over antibaryons. Many proposed explanations require new sources of CP violation or interactions.
Neutrino mass: The nonzero masses of neutrinos, established by their flavor oscillations. Neutrino oscillations require physics beyond the minimal Standard Model.
Grand unified theory: A theory that seeks to unify the strong, weak, and electromagnetic interactions. Unification models extend the Standard Model's gauge structure and often predict new particles.
Direct detection of dark matter: Experiments that seek energy deposited when dark matter scatters from ordinary matter. This method tests whether dark matter interacts weakly with atomic nuclei or electrons.
Effective field theory: A framework describing low-energy phenomena through fields and interactions without specifying all high-energy details. It captures possible new physics through measurable deviations while remaining agnostic about its origin.
Electroweak phase transition: A change in the state of the early universe associated with electroweak symmetry breaking. A sufficiently strong first-order transition could help generate the matter–antimatter asymmetry.