High Energy Theory

Professor Berglund studies string theory, the leading candidate for a theory of all the forces in nature. String theory employs one-dimensional objects, strings, as the fundamental building blocks and gives a unified description of the standard model of particle physics (quantum electrodynamics (QED), the weak interaction and QCD) and quantum gravity. In doing so, the theory predicts that the universe has more than four spacetime dimensions. These extra dimensions, however, play an important role in issues such as

• the origin of matter
• the different energy scales of the standard model of particle physics and quantum gravity
• the small size and positive nature of the cosmological constant.

Research in string theory at UNH focuses on addressing these problems by studying the properties of the extra dimensions.

Professors: Per Berglund, David Mattingly, Chanda Prescod-Weinstein