Welcome to the Institute for Theoretical Physics (ITP)

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The Standard Model (SM) of particle physics describes our basic understanding of the building blocks of matter and how they interact with each other. It is an extremely successful theory that is able to describe particle physics phenomena from the scale of electroweak symmetry breaking all the way up to the Planck scale. With the discovery of the Higgs boson in 2012 - 48 years after its first postulation - the SM has been made structurally complete. Numerous high-precision experiments have tested the SM at the quantum level. Still, there are problems that cannot be explained within the SM, such as the nature of Dark Matter or the generation of the baryon-antibaryon asymmetry e.g. This situation calls for new physics extensions beyond the SM, entailing new particles and interactions implying new signatures to be studied at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN or future e+e- and hadron colliders.

The research at the Institute of Theoretical Physics (ITP) is centered around theoretical particle physics. Our aim is to improve our understanding of nature by making high-precision predictions for observables to be tested at present and future high-energy colliders, both for the SM and new physics extensions beyond the SM. This effort is supported by the development of Monte Carlo algorithms to understand the production at the hadronic level. The research at ITP is complemented by analyses of fundamental aspects of quantum field theory, in particular gauge field theory, and by investigations of the structure of spacetime and the cosmological constant problem.

Members of the ITP also work very closely with the research groups in theoretical (astro-)particle physics at the Institute for Astroparticle Physics (IAP).

Research Groups at the Institute for Theoretical Physics

The Institute for Theoretical Physics (ITP) consists of five research groups. Their activities are described below.

Stefan Gieseke

Research interests: The simulation of exclusive final states at colliders with Monte Carlo Methods. Our research aims at the best possible description of all possible final states, first and foremost at the Large Hadron Collider but possibly also for collisions of electrons and positrons or hadrons when they are hit by cosmic particles at very high energies. We improve the standard model description, mostly of the strong interaction (Quantum Chromodynamics, QCD) with systematic perturbative methods or with models for strong hadronic interactions.

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Gudrun Heinrich

Research interests: Exploring the Higgs sector: finding hints about New Physics through precision measurements requires precision calculations, which we do both within and beyond the Standard Model. We combine Effective Field Theory parametrisations of BSM effects with higher order corrections and perform studies of anomalous couplings in the Yukawa and gauge boson sectors. Scattering amplitudes: we aim to largely automate the calculation of scattering amplitudes beyond one loop. An important aspect here is the numerical evaluation of multi-loop Feynman diagrams, as well as a better understanding of their mathematical structure.

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Frans R. Klinkhamer

Research interests: Fundamental aspects of quantum field theory, in particular gauge field theory. Structure of spacetime, both at very large and very small length scales. Cosmological constant problem.

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Milada M. Mühlleitner

Research interests: Collider physics, phenomenological investigations of models beyond the Standard Model, including precision calculations to Higgs observables, namely production (single and double Higgs) and decay processes; cornering the validity of the models considering theoretical and experimental constraints; baryogenesis and Dark Matter.

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Dieter Zeppenfeld

Research interests: Collider physics; QCD corrections; effective field theories; models of electroweak symmetry breaking; phenomenological investigations of mixed QCD/electroweak processes in hadronic collisions, e.g. vector boson scattering, weak boson pair production, etc.

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Welcome to the Institute for Theoretical Physics (ITP)

Research Groups at the Institute for Theoretical Physics

Stefan Gieseke

Gudrun Heinrich

Frans R. Klinkhamer

Milada M. Mühlleitner

Dieter Zeppenfeld

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