The Abundance of Nothing

What might a philosopher of the universe study? Just ask Stanford University Particle Physicist Savas Dimopoulos about his research and you will hear terms like supersymmetry, extra dimensions, multiverses, naturalness and more - all different scenarios that theoretical physicists are considering as a way to explain some of the outstanding anomalies within our universe. Anomalies that, if understood, could answer fundamental questions concerning our universe and why it sometimes behaves according to current physics models and at other times completely defies our current system of strategic logic.

For example, two of the four fundamental forces of the universe are the weak force and gravitational force. While gravity can act over long distances, such as the length of a galaxy, the weak force is limited to subatomic scales. Yet, the weak force is a staggering 1032 times stronger than gravity. For physicists, this is a problem and they call it the hierarchy problem.

The hierarchy problem is just one of a handful of topics that rival the physical principle called naturalness - a principle that has worked for many physics models in the past including scientists' prediction of all the different particles that comprise the Standard Model. However, certain observations such as the mass of the Higgs boson and value of the cosmological constant have values smaller than what the naturalness principle predicts.

In his talk at SUSY 2013 at ICTP, Dimopoulos addresses these various observations that violate the naturalness principle and offers three possible paths to lead the way forward. The first: "stick with naturalness no matter the cost". The second: stick with a different model called the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model "no matter the cost". And the third: "abandon naturalness" and adopt a system that relies on a vast multiverse - up to 10500 universes.

Each path that Dimopoulos proposes represents a different set of rules that outline logical methodlogy physicists should follow when describing what they observe here on Earth and throughout our universe. The challenge is that all observations do not lie on a single path. One possible resolution would come with the discovery of the theorized "partner" superparticles for every known subatomic particle in the Standard Model. Such a discovery could be possible if physicists could observe particle interactions at very high energies, on order 10 TeV, which the LHC will embark upon in 2015.  

This story is part of the Focus Feature on SUSY 2013. Go to the Focus Feature webpage for the complete coverage.