Colloquium: Zhen Liu, Physics, UMN

Abstract: New physics beyond the standard model is highly anticipated, especially by dark matter and the recently discovered Higgs boson considerations. With the successful exploration and new knowledge from various particle physics experiments, weakly-coupled new physics through various portals bear great potential for discovery but also pose significant challenges. In this colloquium, I present a general consideration of possible complex dark sector structure, which couples to the SM through feebly coupled messenger fields. These messenger field considerations define new goals for particle physics and motivate new ideas in searching for them from large-scale experiments to small-scale experiments. The searches for hidden sector dynamics grow rapidly and spread across different frontiers of particle physics. I will present several exciting new ideas and discuss the future perspectives in this active research area of dark sector messenger hunting.