Student Posters Repository

The best explanation we have for the behavior of the world around us is the Standard Model of particle physics. However, for all its success, the Standard Model itself raises many important theoretical questions.  Further, the Standard Model is known to be incomplete: for example, it does not explain dark matter, dark energy, or the observed excess of matter over antimatter in the Universe. The field of Beyond the Standard Model (BSM) physics works towards finding a more complete description of nature.

One idea in BSM physics supposes that the Higgs boson is not a fundamental particle, but rather a tightly-bound composite particle, glued together by some new strongly-coupled force like the strong nuclear force. To test this idea, we must make predictions to compare with experiment. However, strongly-coupled quantum field theories are mathematically complicated. The only way to test these theories is by direct simulation with lattice gauge theory, a set of Monte Carlo techniques originally invented to study the strong nuclear force. We apply these techniques to investigate a particular composite Higgs model.