Hydrogen bonds are everywhere in nature, and they are important in many fields of science. Well-known examples come from biology (helix structure, protein folding, enzyme docking), chemistry (solvation, structure and properties of water), and atmospheric science (nucleation and growth of aerosols). Today, the spectroscopic features of hydrogen bonds are relatively well understood, but much less is known about the associated ultrafast dynamics. The theoretical models that are used to understand and design present ultrafast experiments are often based on classical or semi-classical approximations to describe the movement of the nuclei. With the recent advances in both theory and ultrafast imaging techniques, we believe that the time is ripe for a full quantum mechanical picture of hydrogen-bond dissociation. A quantum mechanical picture of hydrogen bond dissociation will contribute to the basic understanding of chemical, biological, and atmospheric processes. In this project, I will perform a comprehensive quantum mechanical study of the hydrogen-bond dissociation dynamics of a small hydrogen-bound complex, pyrrole-H2O. The calculations will be performed in a reduced-dimensional framework, for which the central hypothesis is that certain vibrations dictate the dissociation process while other vibrations serve as spectators. The dissociation process will be initiated through an infrared excitation that provides just enough energy to dissociate the complex, but not enough energy to initiate other unwanted processes. We will establish how the reaction mechanisms for hydrogen-bond dissociation manifest themselves in the ongoing ultrafast dynamics experiments performed in the Controlled Molecule Imaging (CMI) group. The calculations will be tailored to design and simulate realistic experiments, and to facilitate the analysis of the experimental results.

The Standard Model (SM) of particle physics provides a cogent, yet incomplete, description of matter and its fundamental interactions. Many theories aim to describe particles and forces beyond the SM of particle physics, but after ten years of data taking at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) and hundreds of experimental measurements, only one deviation from the predictions of the SM has been observed .The Standard Model (SM) of particle physics provides a cogent, yet incomplete, description of matter and its fundamental interactions. Many theories aim to describe particles and forces beyond the SM of particle physics, but after ten years of data taking at the Large Hadron Collider and hundreds of experimental measurements, only one deviation from the predictions of the SM has been observed in a series of semi-leptonic decays of B-mesons (B anomalies). It is undeniable though that the third generation of fermion families have a special role in the SM and beyond and their study represents the pathway towards accessing new particles and forces. Taking into account the current exploitation of LHC data and the constraints set to new particles and forces in recent years, it is time to devote greater scientific focus to the search for new light particles that specially couple to third generation quarks. These particles might be within reach of the LHC, but haven’t been discovered yet due to experimental limitations (triggers). BARD is a new experimental technique that overcomes the limitations of light particle searches and provides a new way of performing data analysis searches for these particles. BARD will achieve this goal by advancing high-momentum resonance search methods using tools specific to the low-momentum B-physics field, in order to increase the available dataset and sensitivity for di-b-jet resonance particles. BARD’s innovation, exploiting the full LHC Run-3 data-taking, will provide a concrete chance at discovering these new particles.

Symmetries serve as our main guide in studying physical phenomena. The more symmetric a system is, the more constrained are its degrees of freedom and the better prospects we have to understand and solve it. Significant progress has been achieved in the study of theories with high amounts of symmetry in the last decades. Supersymmetry and conformal invariance are the main reasons why the beautiful idea of holography materialised into the AdS/CFT correspondence and the discovery of hidden symmetries (integrability) in gauge theories was possible. Thanks to supersymmetry, modern mathematical techniques allowed the evaluation of the otherwise unfathomable path integral and the comprehensive study of a long list of physical observables. Finally, the successful revival of the conformal Bootstrap program is based on conformal invariance. These breakthroughs are, unfortunately, applicable only to theories with unrealistic amounts of symmetry. BrokenSymmetries will break this impasse by applying the aforementioned ideas to more realistic theories, where some of the supersymmetry and/or conformal invariance are broken. The key innovation of BrokenSymmetries is to still make use of a broken symmetry. Symmetries are captured by Ward identities which we can still derive in various cases of symmetry breaking. Broken symmetries also imply powerful non-perturbative relations that observables obey. We will combine these with the developments mentioned above, producing novel exact results. Our approach will give a handle on otherwise insoluble problems. The objectives of BrokenSymmetries are to obtain exact results while breaking: 1) conformal invariance spontaneously, keeping supersymmetry intact; 2) supersymmetry explicitly, keeping conformal invariance intact; 3) both supersymmetry and conformal invariance turning on the temperature; 4) (super)symmetry generators in the context of integrability, which get upgraded to quantum groups' generators.

The discovery of neutrinos above energies of 1e16 eV promises to uncover: the unknown sources of ultra-high energy cosmic rays, new insights into astrophysics of these sources and particle propagation through the Universe, as well as new particle physics, at energies far higher than those accessible to man-made accelerators. The Radio Neutrino Observatory Greenland (RNO-G) is currently under construction and is scheduled to reach 35 stations in 2026. The in-ice radio array RNO-G is the first large-scale implementation of the radio Askaryan technique and will provide an order of magnitude better discovery sensitivity than existing experiments. Its construction and operation is led by me and two colleagues from the US and Europe. This proposal maximizes RNO-G’s potential to discover the long awaited ultra-high energy neutrinos. My research group will do this by enabling high-efficiency and high-purity neutrino searches in data through novel simulations with improved accuracy, high-precision instrument calibration, and the unique exploitation of cosmic ray signals as a training tool.