A high-resolution version for printing - CP3-Origins

Overview of the Centre
The birth, on the 1st of September 2009, of the new Centre of Excellence in Particle Physics Phenomenology
devoted to the understanding of the origin of mass in the universe, CP³-Origins,
constitutes an historical event for theoretical physics in Denmark. It is well known that, in the
past, theoretical physics has brought prestige to this country. It is therefore our principal goal to
use the convergence of the centre’s near to perfect timing, outstanding team, and unprecedented
support at the University of Southern Denmark (SDU) to raise Danish research to the
very top of the international field of particle physics. Besides the already very challenging scientific
goals the centre’s main aspirations are to assume the leading role in the Nordic countries in
one of the most important areas of research worldwide and to form a new generation of particle
physicists excelling internationally. We want also to serve nationally by building strategic research
infrastructure.
These ambitious tasks required the centre to be ready to hit the ground running from the first
day of operation. It is for this reason that we hired, roughly three months before the centre was
due to commence, the Centre’s Administrator Lone Charlotte Nielsen and two months later an
IT Academic Staff member responsible for managing the centre (super)computing, webpage,
and other IT-related activities, Jens Svalgaard Kohrt. Ever since they were hired, Lone and Jens
are doing a superb job, allowing the centre to work seamlessly.
The centre has filled one tenure-track assistant professor position in Lattice Field Theory for Beyond
Standard Model physics which, in a very strong pool of applicants, was offered and accepted
by Claudio Pica. He graduated from the Scuola Normale di Pisa in Italy, has held research
positions at the Brookhaven National Laboratory in US and then in the high energy
group at Edinburgh in UK. Despite his young age Pica has been extremely productive with several
top cited papers and he is a leading expert in lattice field theory for models of Dynamical
Electroweak Symmetry breaking. His research interests besides Beyond Standard Model physics
revolve also around QCD in extreme conditions and mechanisms for confinement using advanced
numerical simulations running on the most advanced computational platforms in the
world. Pica has joined the centre in February 2010.
Professor Joe Schechter from Syracuse University has been visiting CP³-Origins from August to
December 2009. He is one of the world experts in effective Lagrangians for gauge theories of
fundamental interactions. He is also famous for his fundamental contributions to neutrino
physics, and most notably for developing a correct theoretical description of double-beta decay.
He has provided important contributions to the understanding of pion – pion scattering and the
low energy spectrum of Quantum Chromodynamics, i.e. the theory describing strong interactions.
He is also very well known for the soliton description of the nucleon.
Professor Schechter is a fellow of the American Physical Society and 2001 Winner of the Wasserstrom
prize for outstanding graduate teaching in the college of Arts and Sciences of Syracuse
University.
Kimmo Tuominen started in September as Assistant Professor in theoretical physics for a period
of one year. He is a leading expert in the strongly coupled dynamics within and beyond the
standard model. He is very young and energetic, has written several important papers in heavy
ion physics and beyond standard model physics. He will be involved, during his stay at the centre,
in the construction and development of new models of dynamical electroweak symmetry
breaking and its consequences for the collider physics and cosmology.
CP³-Black book 8