Research subjects [2014]:
My research centers around the strong interaction, which is one of the four fundamental forces of Nature. The microscopic theory of the strong interaction is the quantum theory of quarks and gluons, called Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD). Unlike the quantum theory of electrons and photons, Quantum Electrodynamics (QED), QCD is a strongly interacting theory and as a consequence a highly non-linear theory which is very hard to treat exactly and only in very special circumstances can be treated by approximation methods. A main goal of my research is to try to learn as much as possible about the manifestations of this complicated theory. This is not just a matter of gaining a quantitative understanding, because even the qualitative features are not all understood or known yet.
The discovery of the Higgs boson has shown how important it is to know well the distribution of gluons inside protons and if one could get an equally accurate handle on the spin states of the quarks and gluons, then one can use them in the search for new physics (beyond the Standard Model of elementary particles). My research gravitates more and more towards such applications. I am studying how the spin states of gluons affect Higgs production and how such things may help in the search for anomalous interactions of the Higgs boson and for new gauge bosons, in particular the W' boson from left-right symmetric extensions of the Standard Model.