What is the mass of the neutrino? What is dark matter? What physics lies beyond the electroweak scale? As science probes ever more extreme facets of the universe, the role of nuclear theory in unraveling such fundamental mysteries in nature continues to deepen. Long considered a field of disconnected models, breakthroughs in our understanding of the strong and electroweak forces in nuclei are rapidly transforming modern nuclear theory into a true ground-up, or first-principles, discipline. In this talk, I will discuss how these advances now allow us to directly confront some of the most exciting questions in physics beyond the standard model, where we must first contend with a puzzle which has challenged the field for over 50 years.
Dr. Jason D. Holt is a theoretical physicist working on a range of topics involving atoms and atomic nuclei, from nuclear structure, neutrino physics, dark matter scattering on nuclei, fundamental symmetries, and connections to nuclear astrophysics. He obtained his Ph.D. from Stony Brook University and held postdoctoral appointments at TRIUMF, The University of Tennessee, and the Technical University Darmstadt. He is now a research scientist at TRIUMF.