About
Ken joined the University of Southampton as a Lecturer and Ernest Rutherford Fellow in 2023. He is interested in all aspects of collider phenomenology of physics beyond the standard model, particularly effective field theories, extended scalar sectors and axion-like particles. His research aims to connect collider phenomenology with solutions to key puzzles of the standard model, such as the electroweak hierarchy problem, the matter-antimatter asymmetry of the universe, the observed dark matter abundance, and fundamental theoretical constraints from the study of analyticity proerties of scattering amplitudes. He is an expert in the effective field theory approach to new physics searches at colliders, and has worked on large-scale global statistical analysis of high energy physics data and developed several codes for generating precision predictions at collider experiments.
Research
Research groups
Research interests
- Collider phenomenology of physics beyond the standard model
- Effective field theories
- Extended scalar sectors
- Electroweak phase transition
Current research
I am interested in all aspects of collider phenomenology of physics beyond the standard model.
In particular, I have spent the last years focusing on the standard model effective field theory (SMEFT) approach to searching for new physics indirectly via new interactions among standrad model particles. I have worked on global statistical analyses of large high energy physics datasets to measure the parameters of the SMEFT, developed tools for precision predictions for collider processes in the SMEFT framework and produced a series of phenomenological studies aimed at maximising the sensitivity of colliders to indirect new physics effects.
I am also interested in exploring the connection between the space of effective theories and scattering amplitudes, exploiting the analytic properties of the latter to derive ab-initio theoretical constraints on the allowed parameter space, known as positivity bounds, that emerge from assuming a valid quantum field theoretic underliying model for new physics. I am keen to explore the phenomenological consequences of these bounds, in particular how we can use these to improve our sensitivity to effective interactions and test the validity of these assumptions at colliders.
I have also worked exensively on theories involving extended scalar sectors, such as axion-like particles and theoreis with additional Higgs fields in the context of generating the matter anti-matter asymmetry of the universe though a strongly first-order electroweak phase transition and explaining the observed abundance of dark matter.
Research projects
Active projects
Publications
Biography
I am an Ernest Rutherford Fellow and Lecturer in the Southampton High Energy Physics group. I obtained my PhD in 2013 from the University of Southampton and went on to hold a postdoctoral position at the University of Sussex, UK, a Marie Sklodowska Curie Individual Fellowship hosted at UCLouvain, Belgium, and another postdoctoral position at King's College London. I was awarded an Ernest Rutherford Fellowship in 2023 to pursue my research project entitled "Maximising the new physics reach of the LHC through effective field theories", hosted by the University of Southampton.