Physics & Astronomy Colloquium – Fall 2018 – Raut

Speaker: Digesh Raut (University of Delaware)

Title: New Physics for Neutrino Mass Generation and Dark Matter in the Universe

Abstract: Although the Standard Model (SM) is a tremendously successful theory of elementary particles, it does not account for the masses of neutrinos and the existence of dark matter (DM) in the universe. We consider a simple and well-motivated extension of the SM which include a new fundamental force which is carried by a new gauge boson . Additionally, the model also includes three generations of right-handed neutrinos (RHNs) one of which is a candidate for the DM particle while the other two RHNs explain the origin of neutrino masses via the so-called see-saw mechanism. The DM particle interacts with the SM particles through the boson. We show that the abundance of DM in the present universe is complementary with the search for Z’ boson at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) to narrow down the allowed parameter space of the model. In the same model context, we show that RHNs involved in the seesaw mechanism could be discovered in the future which will reveal the mechanism to generate neutrino masses.

Speaker Biography:

• PhD from University of Alabama 2018
• current affiliation with University of Delaware, Newark, DE
• position: Postdoctoral Fellow since 2018