The goal of this essay is to discuss the future of discovery in particle physics. Its primary motivation is the 2019 European Strategy update, which aims to determine the future experimental and theoretical priorities for particle physics. A key question is to understand what the standard theory (Standard Model) of particle physics really is, which the author argues has been a foggy notion for several decades which he clarifies. It then is to decide what motivated beyond the Standard Model theories are to be targeted by experiment. This book brightly exposes these theories, and puts current particle physics research into its historical context and points the way toward future work.

Autorentext
James D. Wells is professor of physics at the University of Michigan (USA). As theoretical physicist his research explores ideas designed to solve outstanding "origins" problems in fundamental physics: the origin of gauge symmetries, dark matter, flavor violations, CP violation, and mass. Professor Wells is a Fellow of the American Physical Society, a recipient of an Outstanding Junior Investigator (OJI) Award from the U.S. Department of Energy, and a Sloan Fellowship from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

Inhalt
Introduction.- The theory canon.- Confirmation discoveries.- Exclusion discoveries.- Revolutionary discoveries.- Signalism: risks of pursuing discovery without BSM context.- Gravity waves & Higgs boson discoveries through the BSM lens.- European strategy update.- When does discovery end?.- Summary.