The Standard Model (SM) of particle physics is a remarkably successful description of nature at the most fundamental level and has been completed in 2012 with the discovery of the Brout-Englert-Higgs boson at the LHC. There are, however, several empirical issues that prove the incompleteness of the SM, including
-
neutrino oscillations, i.e. the fact that neutrinos are massive and subject to large mixing, and
-
dark matter (DM), i.e. the existence of new long-lived weakly-interacting neutral particles.
It is by no means difficult to extend the SM by new particles in order to accommodate neutrino masses and DM, but there is no unique or arguably even simplest solution. Ultimately, experiments will have to decide which model is going to succeed the SM. Prof. Heeck's research consists of dedicated phenomenological studies of theoretically well-motivated models in order to identify promising search channels and distinctive signatures to facilitate this goal.