David Curtin
Assistant Professor
Canada Research Chair in Theoretical Particle Physics
pronouns: he/him
High Energy Theory Group
Department of Physics, MP1113
dcurtin@physics.utoronto.ca
office: +1 416-978-4784
Research
I am a high energy phenomenologist, interested in finding and analyzing theories of particle physics beyond the Standard Model. My current areas of active research include:
- The Higgs Boson: new physics in exotic Higgs decays. I am a founding member of the Exotic Higgs Decays working group that is now part of HXSWG.
- Long-lived particles: exotic new particles that may be produced at the LHC and other colliders and decay a macroscopic distance displaced from the production point. How to find them at the LHC and future colliders. I am a founding member of the MATHUSLA experimental collaboration to build a dedicated external detector for very long-lived neutral particles.
- The Hierarchy Problem: testing solutions to the hierarchy problem at the LHC & future colliders; models of Neutral Naturalness.
- Cosmology: Origin of the universe's matter-antimatter asymmetry via the mechanism of electroweak baryogenesis. Signatures of a strong electroweak phase transition. Finite-Temperature Quantum Field Theory. Cosmological signatures of hidden sector theories. Dark matter models beyond the WIMP paradigm and their implications for stellar astrophysics.
- New Astrophysical Signatures: Hidden sector theories can give rise to exotic astrophysical signatures, like mirror stars or dark disks. Searching for these phenomena opens up completely new discovery possibilities to probe the unsolved mysteries of fundamental physics.
- Collider Phenomenology: new physics in displaced decay modes; low-lying new electroweak states that could hide in SM background; the physics case for future colliders, like the 100 TeV pp proposals at CERN (FCC-hh) and China (SPPC), or electron-proton colliders like LHeC and FCC-eh.
- Supersymmetric gauge theories: theories of dynamical SUSY breaking and metastability; dualities and nonperturbative results, in particular their use for model building.
Resume
2018 - ongoing: Assistant Professor, Department of Physics, University of Toronto.
2014 - 2017: Postdoctoral Research Associate, University of Maryland.
2011 - 2014: Postdoctoral Research Associate, Stony Brook University.
2006 - 2011: PhD, Cornell University. Thesis Advisor: Csaba Csaki.
2005: Bachelor of Science (Honors), University of Melbourne. Thesis Advisor: Raymond Volkas.
2002 - 2004: Bachelor of Science, University of Sydney.