High Energy Physics

The LHC has just concluded this year's proton-proton run at 7 TeV CM energy, producing more than 5fb-1of data. While the full data sample collected by the CMS experiment will be analyzed over the winter, many of the present searches for new physics have been completed with 1-2 fb-1. In this talk we will present the most recent updates on the search analyses in CMS, including the Higgs search, searches for supersymmetry, and a plethora of other BSM models, such as extra dimensions, Z's, W_R, leptoquarks, and more. We'll also show the short-term and longer-term plans of the collider and experiments.

Taking String Theory as a ``theoretical laboratory'', I will present handy expressions for bosonic and fermionic (SUSY) higher-spin Noether currents. I will also describe a class of non-local higher-spin Lagrangian couplings that are generically required by the Noether procedure starting from four-points. The construction clarifies the origin of old problems for these systems and links String Theory to some aspects of Field Theory that go beyond its conventional low energy limit. I will finally discuss how the extension of these results to (A)dS brings about the emergence of minimal-like couplings from higher-derivative ones.

In this talk I will provide evidence supporting the Dolan/Nirschl/Osborn conjecture for the precise form of the amplitude of four-point functions of 1/2-BPS operators in N=4 SYM theory at strong coupling and in the large N limit. I will also discuss the methods that allowed the evaluation of amplitudes involving operators of arbitrary conformal dimension.