The TELOS collaboration’s goal is to understand the origins of the Higgs particle. The Higgs is one of the cornerstones of our current understanding of the weak interactions, those that lead to beta decays of nuclei. It is a fundamental ingredient in a unified description of the weak and electromagnetic interactions, collectively called electroweak interactions.
In everyday experience, the fundamental interactions whose effects we notice most easily are certainly electromagnetic and gravitational interactions. We only discover strong interactions while exploring the structure of matter at very tiny length scales, where we stumble upon objects called nuclei, in which are found protons. This is very striking: the protons are positively charged and we would expect them to repel one another. The fact nuclei hold together points us to the existence of the strong interaction which, as the name suggests, is able to overcome the electric repulsion. Weak interactions were first noticed in radioactive decays which gave the first clue about the internal structure of nuclei. Intuitively, an object cannot lose any of its components if the components are not there to begin with! Nowadays we know that weak interactions are also an essential ingredient in the nuclear fusion processes in the sun’s interior that enable it to shine. In a certain sense, weak interactions are hidden in plain sight!
The Higgs particle was observed in 2012 following a multidecade-long search. Its existence confirms our current model for the electroweak interaction, at least as far as present experiments are concerned. Moreover, the Higgs underlies the masses of all the other Standard Model particles: electrons, muons, neutrons, protons… . It is sometimes said that the Higgs “gives mass” to all the other particles. This important role often obscures the fact that while we can calculate many things, we still have no explanation as to why the Standard Model takes the specific form it does.
The problem we are investigating is precisely what lies behind the Higgs particle. Several models have been proposed. We are using DiRAC resources to explore the features of one of these models: ones in which the Higgs particle is composite, with components held together by a new and as-yet poorly understood interaction.
We are exploring a scenario in which the Higgs particle is a bound state of other particles. These cannot be found in the Standard Model, or we would have noticed them already, so we assume that they are completely new and call them hyperquarks. Hyperquarks interact with one another to form a bound state that we see as the Higgs particle. This interaction must be very similar to the QCD interaction binding quarks within protons and neutrons, and indeed QCD offers a template for the new so-called Sp(4) interaction.
Unfortunately, this feature is also the one that makes pen-and-paper calculations impossible. Instead, we place the hyperquarks and their interactions into a simplified model, and simulate their behaviour on a computer. In particular, we simulate a strange discretized world, a so-called spacetime lattice. Numerical experiments can be performed to answer questions such as how the hyperquark mass influences masses of the resultant bound states.
After nearly ten years, we are at the point where we are in transition from exploratory to precision studies. We have made a nearly complete mapping of the possible light bound states in our theory of hyperquarks. Of course, it would be very important to provide predictions that can be directly compared with collider experiments performed, for example, at CERN. This might rule out a specific scenario we have for Higgs compositeness but equally could also confirm its viability.
Figure: Spectrum of light bound states emerging from the hyperquark theory. Each column represents a different composite particle predicted by our simulations, including mesons (two hyperquarks bound together) and more complex “chimera baryons” built from different types of hyperquark. The vertical position indicates the particle’s mass, while the size of each bar shows the uncertainty in our calculation. The pattern reveals a clear and stable hierarchy of states across different simulation setups, demonstrating that we now have quantitative control over the theory’s low-energy spectrum. These results provide the first comprehensive map of the particles that would accompany a composite Higgs and are essential for assessing whether this scenario can be tested — or ruled out — in future collider experiments.
The TELOS collaboration is formed by 7 core members and, currently 3 postdocs plus 2 PhD students. We also have occasional external collaborators, raising the total to approximately twenty.
The core members are based in three UK institutions: Swansea, Queen Mary and Plymouth, as well as in Daejeon in South Korea and Taipei in Taiwan. Our PhD students, postdocs and collaborators are distributed mainly in the UK, between Plymouth, Swansea and Edinburgh, and in Tsukuba, Japan. We are providing the community with information about a specific scenario for Higgs compositeness.
Our results will help: first, those working in our same research area —lattice gauge theorists; next those researchers — phenomenologists — exploring the landscape of possible composite Higgs theories and interested in determining their viability. Lastly, our results could suggest specific measurements and analyses to experimentalists working at collider facilities around the world (CERN, Fermilab,…).
Niccolò Forzano is originally from Italy and is currently based in Swansea, where he is completing his PhD in Theoretical and Computational Physics at Swansea University. He previously studied Physics at Università degli Studi di Milano-Bicocca, where he built a strong foundation in theoretical physics and scientific computing. His research focuses on large-scale numerical simulations and data analysis in lattice gauge theory, combining high-performance computing with advanced statistical methods. During his academic career, Niccolò also gained experience at CERN, further strengthening his interest in data-intensive research and complex scientific infrastructures.
Over the years, he has developed advanced computing skills through hands-on research, including managing large datasets, optimising scientific code, and building transparent, reproducible analysis pipelines. Having lived in Swansea for several years, he values its collaborative research environment and international outlook. Motivated by curiosity and a desire to tackle complex problems, Niccolò aims to apply his analytical and computational expertise to impactful challenges at the intersection of science, data, and innovation.
Mixing between flavor singlets in lattice gauge theories coupled to matter fields in multiple representations
Ed Bennett, Niccolò Forzano, Deog Ki Hong, Ho Hsiao5, Jong-Wan Lee, C.-J. David Lin, Biagio Lucini, Maurizio Piai, Davide Vadacchino, et al.
Sp(2N) Lattice Gauge Theories and Extensions of the Standard Model of Particle Physics
Ed Bennett, Jack Holligan, Deog Ki Hong, Ho Hsiao, Jong-Wan Lee, ORCID, C.-J. David Lin, Biagio Lucini, Michele Mesiti, Maurizio Piai, and Davide Vadacchino
Sp (4) gauge theories on the lattice: Nf = 2 dynamical fundamental fermions
Ed Bennett, Deog Ki Hong, Jong-Wan Lee, C.-J. David Lin, Biagio Lucini, Maurizio Piai & Davide Vadacchino
