Talks

These three lectures cover several ideas of physics beyond the Standard Model. My focus is on ideas that give a natural stabilization solution to the electroweak scale, which is mysteriously light compared to the gravitational Planck scale. These ideas include supersymmetric field theories, extra dimensions, and Higgs boson physics. I shall describe what I think are the "best bets" among these approaches, and more importantly the ways they can be discerned by experiment. Special emphasis will be on theories that can be confirmed at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) that is just now starting.

Gamma rays from WIMP annihilation are an important signal through which we search for non-gravitational interactions of dark matter. In particular, lines in the energy spectrum of gamma rays provide a signal which is difficult for conventional astrophysics to fake, and are thus promising despite the fact that such lines are generically expect to be suppressed, arising from one loop processes. I will discuss two theories which have an interesting family of gamma ray lines and discuss how such lines can reveal information about the WIMPs and the dark sector.

A quantum theory of gravity implies a quantum theory of geometries. To this end we will introduce different phases spaces and choices for the space of discretized geometries. These are derived through a canonical analysis of simplicity constraints - which are central for spin foam models - and gluing constraints. We will discuss implications for spin foam models and map out how to obtain a path integral quantization starting from a canonical quantization.