TPPC weekly seminar (in-person): Peter Millington - "The particle physics of scalar-tensor theories of gravity"

Wednesday 25 Oct 2023, 12:30 → 14:00 Europe/London

Strand Building, S7.06

Speaker: Peter Millington (Manchester University)

Title: The particle physics of scalar-tensor theories of gravity 

Abstract: Einstein gravity is readily extended with the introduction of additional scalar fields, leading to scalar-tensor theories of gravity. Any extra scalar, if sufficiently light, can give rise to a long-range fifth force that is heavily constrained by precision tests of gravity. These tests can be evaded by appealing to screening mechanisms, wherein non-linear behaviour and environmental dependence can lead to a suppression of the fifth force in regions of high ambient density. In this talk, I will focus on: how scalar-tensor theories can be recast as Higgs-portal extensions of the Standard Model of particle physics, how the structure of the Standard Model itself impacts the phenomenology of fifth forces, and how scattering calculations in scalar-tensor theories of gravity can be automated, using the FeynMG extension to FeynRules.