André de Gouvêa , Robert Oakes
It is the goal of High Energy Physics to study matter at the smallest distance scales, in an attempt to uncover the fundamental building blocks of Nature and understand their dynamics. The members of the high-energy theory group concentrate their research efforts on the phenomenology of quantum chromodynamics and electroweak interactions, and on understanding the mechanism of electroweak symmetry breaking and the origin of neutrino masses and fermion mixing. Work is carried out in probing the physics that lies beyond the standard model, including supersymmetric theories and theories with extra dimensions. There is also significant activity related to understanding flavor physics, especially heavy quark physics and the physics of neutrino oscillations.
