XXXVI Encontro Nacional de Física de Partículas e Campos
With researchers from ICTP-SAIFR and from other countries, the event discussed Cosmology, Gravitation and the Standard Model
Last week, the XXXVI Encontro Nacional de Física de Partículas e Campos was held in Caxambu, Minas Gerais. Among the main topics discussed were Cosmology, Gravitation and High Energy Physics. Coordinated by Nelson Braga, from UFRJ, the lectures of the event were for the first time divided by themes, instead of the traditional division by areas.
“Having the lectures in a new format was an excellent idea”, said Rogério Rosenfeld, from IFT/UNESP and ICTP-SAIFR, who helped organizing the event.
The meeting was attended by international researchers, as Alexei Starobinsky (Landau Institute for Theoretical Physics, Moscow, Russia), who spoke about inflation models, and Alessandro Strumia (University of Pisa, Italy), who discussed ideas on the Standard Model.
ICTP-SAIFR researchers also attented the event. Nathan Berkovits, director of the institute, spoke about Superstring Theory, and Fabio Iocco discussed his studies on Dark Matter. Also, post-docs Nicolás Bernal and Alberto Tonero presented their work.
Is nature natural?
In one of the event’s talks, entitled “Is nature natural?”, Strumia provoked and discussed ideas related to the Standard Model and to the theories that attempt to go beyond it, such as Supersymmetry. Strumia continued the discussion in a lecture held at the ICTP-SAIFR on Monday.
“Supersymmetry, a theory considered “natural”, is being sought for decades, but no experiment could confirm it so far”, said the researcher. “But the Standard Model, often considered “unnatural”, continues to be proven. So is nature really “natural”?
Theories beyond the Standard Model attempt to explain phenomena that is not yet understood by science, such as dark matter. When questioned on this topic, Strumia said the solution is perhaps to add a new particle to the model, without the need of other theories.
“In my opinion, if we confirm that there are no theories beyond the Standard Model, the physics of this area may become even more interesting than otherwise”.