In
physics, phenomenology is the application of
theoretical physics to
experimental data by making quantitative predictions based upon known theories. It is related to the
philosophical notion of the same name in that these predictions describe anticipated behaviors for the phenomena in reality. Phenomenology stands in contrast with experimentation in the
scientific method, in which the goal of the experiment is to test a scientific hypothesis instead of making predictions.
Phenomenology is commonly applied to the field of
particle physics, where it forms a bridge between the
mathematical models of theoretical physics (such as
quantum field theories and theories of the structure of
space-time) and the results of the high-energy particle experiments. It is sometimes used in other fields such as in
condensed matter physics
Condensed matter physics is the field of physics that deals with the macroscopic and microscopic physical properties of matter, especially the solid and liquid phases which arise from electromagnetic forces between atoms. More generally, the ...
and
plasma physics,
when there are no existing theories for the observed experimental data.
Applications in particle physics
Standard Model consequences
Within the well-tested and generally accepted
Standard Model,
phenomenology is the calculating of detailed predictions for experiments, usually at high precision (e.g., including
radiative corrections).
Examples include:
*
Next-to-leading order calculations of
particle production rates and distributions.
*
Monte Carlo simulation
Monte Carlo methods, or Monte Carlo experiments, are a broad class of computational algorithms that rely on repeated random sampling to obtain numerical results. The underlying concept is to use randomness to solve problems that might be determini ...
studies of physics processes at
collider
A collider is a type of particle accelerator which brings two opposing particle beams together such that the particles collide. Colliders may either be ring accelerators or linear accelerators.
Colliders are used as a research tool in particle ...
s.
* Extraction of
parton distribution functions from data.
CKM matrix calculations
The CKM matrix is useful in these predictions:
* Application of
heavy quark effective field theory
In quantum chromodynamics, heavy quark effective theory (HQET) is an effective field theory describing the physics of heavy (that is, of mass far greater than the QCD scale) quarks. It is used in studying the properties of hadrons containing a sin ...
to extract
CKM matrix elements.
* Using
lattice QCD to extract quark masses and CKM matrix elements from experiment.
Theoretical models
In
Physics beyond the Standard Model, phenomenology addresses the experimental consequences of new
model
A model is an informative representation of an object, person or system. The term originally denoted the plans of a building in late 16th-century English, and derived via French and Italian ultimately from Latin ''modulus'', a measure.
Models c ...
s: how their new particles could be searched for, how the model parameters could be measured, and how the model could be distinguished from other, competing models.
Phenomenological analysis
Phenomenological analyses, in which one studies the experimental consequences of adding the most general set of beyond-the-Standard-Model effects in a given
sector of the Standard Model, usually parameterized in terms of anomalous
couplings and higher-dimensional operators. In this case, the term "
phenomenological" is being used more in its
philosophy of science sense.
See also
*
Effective theory In science, an effective theory is a scientific theory which proposes to describe a certain set of observations, but explicitly without the claim or implication that the mechanism employed in the theory has a direct counterpart in the actual causes ...
*
Phenomenological model
*
Phenomenological quantum gravity
References
External links
Papers on phenomenology are available on the hep-ph archiveof the
ArXiv.org e-print archive
List of topics on phenomenologyfrom IPPP, the Institute for Particle Physics Phenomenology at
University of Durham
Durham University (legally the University of Durham) is a collegiate university, collegiate public university, public research university in Durham, England, Durham, England, founded by an Act of Parliament in 1832 and incorporated by royal charte ...
, UK
Collider Phenomenology: Basic knowledge and techniques lectures by Tao Han
Pheno '08 Symposiumon particle physics phenomenology, including slides from the talks linked from the symposium program.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Phenomenology (Particle Physics)
Condensed matter physics
Experimental particle physics
Experimental physics
Particle physics
Phenomenological methodology
Plasma physics
Theoretical physics