There are compelling reasons for us to believe that the Standard Model (SM) of particle physics is not complete. Theoretically, the mass of the SM Higgs boson receives quadratically divergent corrections at the quantum level and hence is not stable. Stabilizing the Higgs mass requires the existence of beyond-the-SM (BSM) physics. Cosmologically, observations reveal that the total mass of the Universe today is largely composed of dark matter (DM). Our knowledge on the DM properties (e.g., its species, mass, interaction) however is very poor. In addition we do not understand why there is more baryonic matter than anti-baryonic matter in the Universe. While both cosmic mysteries involve physics of the large scale, solving them heavily depends on physics of the small scale and requires the BSM physics as well.
The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) located at CERN is the world's largest and highest-energy particle accelerator. It provides a powerful experimental tool to search for and measure the properties of the Higgs boson, explore the BSM physics, and unravel cosmic mysteries like DM and baryon asymmetry. Since it started to run four years ago, great progress has been achieved. For example, a Higgs-like particle was discovered in both the CMS and the ATLAS experiments at the LHC. This discovery was selected as the "BREAKTHROUGH of the YEAR" by "Science" magazine in 2012. In view of the progress at the LHC and its ultimate goal, this new Gordon Research Conference (GRC) will be focused on the interactions between theoretical particle physicists and their experimental colleagues working at the LHC and other relevant experiments. The conference is expected to cover a wide range of topics, such as QCD (Quantum Chromodynamics) and jets, top physics, Higgs physics, DM physics, flavor physics, and BSM physics (both supersymmetry and non-supersymmetry), in a way that highlights both theoretical and experimental contributions. We hope that this conference can serve as a platform for communication between the theoretical and experimental communities where they can exchange information on the field developments, identify priorities for the LHC studies at new phases, and develop close collaboration in the near future. Hong Kong, the world city of Asia, is an ideal place to coordinate international activities in the field.
Chair
John Ellis
(CERN and King’s College London)
(Visiting Professor of HKUST Jockey Club Institute for Advanced Study)
Vice Chairs
Hitoshi Murayama (University of Tokyo and University of California, Berkeley)
Tao Liu (The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology)
