Patrick Stengel

Ricercatore Postdoc

Patrick completed his PhD at the University of Hawaii in 2016 and then held a joint postdoc appointment at the University of Michigan and Stockholm University from 2016-2020. Before joining the cosmology group as a postdoc in Ferrara, he was a postdoc at SISSA from 2020-2022. He works at the intersection of theoretical astroparticle and high energy physics.

Several open questions in high energy physics are difficult to resolve without particles beyond the Standard Model. With a wealth of new data from current and planned experiments, astroparticle physics provides a window into potential solutions of such problems. Patrick investigates a variety of theoretical frameworks for and experimental probes of new physics.

There is strong evidence for a dark matter particle from observations of gravitational interactions at a wide variety of scales and epochs. However, due to the lack of a discovery at dark matter searches, Patrick is interested in both new experimental strategies and a re-evaluation of the theories which provide for viable dark matter candidate particles.

Although neutrinos are massless in the Standard Model, observation of neutrino oscillations and limits from cosmology suggest that small masses are necessary. While neutrino masses can be accommodated by the Higgs mechanism, Patrick works on models in which light neutrinos can arise more naturally and provide for a way to generate the baryon asymmetry of the universe.

The next generation of experiments which observe the cosmic microwave background and the improved measurements of light element abundances produced during big bang nucleosynthesis could also probe physics beyond the Standard Model. Patrick considers how such early universe observables can shed light on dark matter, neutrinos and inflation.

Contacts:
Email: pstengel@fe.infn.it
Office: Building C, room 415
Phone:
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