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Mariana Frank Research Group

Most of our work is devoted to the prediction, anticipation, and explanation of new signals coming from various accelerators, in particular, from the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), in particular, to specialized searches of Physics Beyond The Standard Model of electroweak interaction. These searches are motivated by the fact that the Standard Model, while experimentally successful, still suffers from theoretical inconsistencies, and it does not explain all phenomena observed in nature (such as, for example, dark matter).

Mariana Frank research group members, 2019: (left to right) Kıvanç Çıngıloğlu, Dr. Mariana Frank, Eric Gyabeng Fuakye, Jack Araz and (inset) Özer Özdal.

Physics at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC)

Some of our research projects are:

The most popular scenario for physics beyond the Standard Model is Supersymmetry. Supersymmetry is a fermion-boson symmetry which provides a dark matter candidate naturally and which explains the stability of the Higgs mass.

We work on non-minimal models, such as U(1)’ models and left-right supersymmetric models, looking for viable dark matter candidates and for distinguishing signals at the LHC.

Introducing an extra space dimension and a warping of the space associated with it provides a viable explanation of why gravity is so weak at the Standard Model scale. Allowing the Standard Model particles to propagate in the extra dimension resolves fermion mass hierarchies and supresses flavour-changing currents.

In its original version of the model, the scale of this theory has to be high, precluding its observation at the LHC. We are exploring a version with a modified metric, which allows the scale to be lower and agrees with the data from the Higgs discovery. 

A spectacular signature of Physics Beyond the Standard Model would be the observation of a particle with different quantum numbers than the ones allowed for Standard Model particles: for instance a doubly-charged particle, or a particle with spin 2. We are trying to characterize such particles and indicate the most promising signals at the colliders.

Dark Matter is non-baryonic matter that interacts only weakly. But what is it? Supersymmetry provides a natural candidate in the lightest supersymmetric particle, but what about other models? We propose possible candidates for dark matter and study their interactions and the interplay between LHC signals and dedicated Dark Matter direct and indirect detection experiments.

Principal investigator

Mariana Frank

Professor, Physics
Email: mariana.frank@concordia.ca

Collaborators

  • Prof. Benjamin Fuks
    Laboratoire de Physique Théorique et Hautes Énergies (LPTHE), UMR 7589, Sorbonne Université;
    CNRS, 4 Place Jussieu, 75252 Pris Cedex 05, France;
    Institut Universitaire de France, 103 boulevard Saint-Michel, 75005 Paris, France
  • Prof. Stefano Moretti
    School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Southampton, Highfied, Southampton SO17 1BJ, United Kingdom
  • Prof. Katri Huitu
    Department of Physics and Helsinki Institute of Physics, P. O. Box 64, FI-00014 University of Helsinki, Finland
  • Prof. Santosh Kumar Rai
    Regional Centre for Accelerator-based Particle Physics, Harish-Chandra Research Institute, HBNI, Chhatnag Road, Jhusi, Prayagraj 211019, India
  • Prof. Poulose Poulose
    Department of Physics, Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati, Assam 781039, India
  • Dr. Manuel Toharia
    Department of Physics, Dawson College, 3040 Sherbrooke St W, Montreal, Qc, Canada H3Z 1A4
  • Dr. Subhadeep Mondal
    Department of Physics, Bennett University, Plot Nos 8-11, TechZone 2, Greater Noida, Uttar Pradesh 201310, India
  • Prof. Ismail Turan
    Department of Physics, Middle East Technical University, TR06800 Ankara, Turkey
  • Dr. Levent Selbuz
    Department of Engineering Physics, Ankara University, TR06100 Ankara, Turkey
  • Dr. Ipsita Saha
    Kavli IPMU (WPI), UTIAS, University of Tokyo, Kashiwa, Chiba 277-8583, Japan.
  • Prof. Marc de Montigny
    Campus Saint-Jean, University of Alberta, 8406 - 91 Street Edmonton AB T6C 4G9
  • Dr. Pierre-Philippe Ouimet
    Department of Physics, University of Regina, 3737 Wascana Pkwy, Regina, SK, Canada S4S 0A2

Current members

Research associates
Özer Özdal

 Postdoctoral Fellow
Physics Beyond the Standard Model at the LHC
Email:  ozerozdal@gmail.com

Students
Kıvanç Çıngıloğlu

Ph.D. student
Vector-like leptons at hadron colliders: characterization, masses, multilepton signals
Email: kivanc.cingiloglu@concordia.ca

Parham Dehghani

Ph.D. student
Superymmetric scenarios and R-symmetry breaking
Email: parham.dehghani@concordia.ca
Research gate profile

Tyrell Edward Umbach

M.Sc. student
Observing Dark Monopoles at the MoEDAL experiment
Email: tyrell.umbach@concordia.ca

Alumni

Postdoctoral fellows and research assistants
  • Dr. Manuel Toharia (2010-2015). Now: Instructor at Dawson College, Montréal
  • Dr. Levent Selbuz (2012-2013). Now: Assistant Professor at Ankara University
Graduate students
Undergraduate and summer students
  • Jai Pimprikar (2019), NSERC USRA, Sterile neutrino as explanations for miniBOONe and LSND²
  • Jun Hyung Bae (2018), B.Sc. honours thesis, Comparing Theoretical predictions of the Standard Model with the experimental data at the LHC
  • George Williams (2018), B.Sc. specialization project, The Standard Model and Models with Extra Warped Space Dimensions
  • Jai Pimprikar (2018) NSERC USRA, Standard Model as a Gauge Theory
  • Amanda di Nitto (2018), B.Sc. honours thesis, Dark matter in Cosmology, Astrophysics and Particle Physics
  • Andreas Sarchosis (2017), B.Sc. specialization project, Neutrino Physics Review
  • Tyrell Edward Umbach (2016), B.Sc. specialization project, Scenarios of Physics Beyond the Standard Model
  • Nedaa Asbah (2010), B.Sc. co-op summer project, Dark Matter in Particle Physics and Cosmology

A complete list of the publications can be found on INSPIRE.
 

  1. MoEDAL Collaboration, Magnetic Monopole Search with the Full MoEDAL Trapping Detector in 13 TeV pp Collisions Interpreted in Photon-Fusion and Drell-Yan Production. Phys. Rev. Lett. 123, 021802 (2019). doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.123.021802
  2. Chatterjee, A., Frank, M., Fuks, B., Huitu, K., Mondal, S., Rai, S. K. & Waltari, H. Multileptonic signals of co-annihilating left-right supersymmetric dark matter. Phys. Rev. D 99, 035017 (2019). doi:10.1103/PhysRevD.99.035017
  3. Duan, G. H., Fan, X., Frank, M., Han, C. & Yang, J. M. A minimal U(1)′ extension of MSSM in light of the B decay anomaly. Physics Letters B 789, 54–58 (2019). doi:10.1016/j.physletb.2018.12.005
  4. Frank, M., Özdal, Ö. & Poulose, P. Relaxing LHC constraints on the WR mass. Phys. Rev. D 99, 035001 (2019). doi:10.1103/PhysRevD.99.035001
  5. Araz, J. Y., Banerjee, S., Frank, M., Fuks, B. & Goudelis, A. Dark matter and collider signals in an MSSM extension with vector-like multiplets. Phys. Rev. D 98, 115009 (2018). doi:10.1103/PhysRevD.98.115009
  6. Selbuz, L., Frank, M. & Turan, I. Higgs, chargino and neutralino mass spectra in RPV U(1)’. Il Nuovo Cimento C 40, 1–5 (2018). doi:10.1393/ncc/i2017-17198-x
  7. Araz, J. Y., Corcella, G., Frank, M. & Fuks, B. Loopholes in Z′ searches at the LHC: exploring supersymmetric and leptophobic scenarios. Journal of High Energy Physics 2018, 92 (2018). doi:10.1007/JHEP02(2018)092
  8. Frank, M. & Özdal, Ö. Exploring the supersymmetric U(1)B-L × U(1)R model with dark matter, muon g-2, and Z’ mass limits. Phys. Rev. D 97, 015012 (2018). doi:10.1103/PhysRevD.97.015012
  9. Araz, J. Y., Frank, M. & Fuks, B. Differentiating U(1)’ supersymmetric models with right sneutrino and neutralino dark matter. Phys. Rev. D 96, 015017 (2017). doi:10.1103/PhysRevD.96.015017
  10. Couture, G., Frank, M., Hamzaoui, C. & Toharia, M. Top and bottom partners, Higgs boson on the brane, and the tth signal. Phys. Rev. D 95, 095038 (2017). doi:10.1103/PhysRevD.95.095038
  11. Bahrami, S., Frank, M., Ghosh, D. K., Ghosh, N. & Saha, I. Dark matter and collider studies in the left-right symmetric model with vectorlike leptons. Phys. Rev. D 95, 095024 (2017). doi:10.1103/PhysRevD.95.095024
  12. Frank, M., Fuks, B., Huitu, K., Rai, S. K. & Waltari, H. Resonant slepton production and right sneutrino dark matter in left-right supersymmetry. Journal of High Energy Physics 2017, 15 (2017). doi:10.1007/JHEP05(2017)015
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