Wednesday 20 September 2017 

Speaker:  Professor Alon Faraggi (University of Liverpool)


Title: "The quest for unification”

Abstract: The quest for unification is a prevailing theme is physics, from Newton who unified terrestrial and celestial 
mechanics, to modern day efforts to synthesize general relativity and quantum mechanics. I will describe contemporary work 
on two fronts in this direction. The first is the construction of phenomenological heterotic-string models and the study 
of a particular class that produced solely the spectrum of the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model in their low energy 
effective field theory. I will describe efforts to extract experimental predictions beyond the Standard Model in the form 
of extra Z' and dark matter candidates. The role of fundamental symmetries in the construction, as well as fundamental 
principles that may underline quantum gravity will be discussed. The presentation will be non-technical and suitable for 
a general audience.