This list is provided to give you an idea of the sorts of SIPs I might be interested in advising, but the list is not comprehensive.
· Currently-hot experimental ideas:
o Solar neutrinos – combining data from Sudbury Neutrino Observatory in Canada with data from Super-Kamiokande in Japan – how a 30 year old mystery is finally getting solved.
o CP violation in B decay – two experiments recently measured this – why is CP violation important?
o Higgs – the long-sought last missing particle of the Standard Model – how has it managed to stay hidden for so long?
· Currently-hot theoretical ideas:
o Supersymmetry – this boson-fermion symmetry is widely accepted among particle theorists even though there is not yet any concrete evidence for it – want to find out why?
o CP violation in leptons – learn how neutrino experiments spanning a continent might probe CP violation in a way not imagined until recently.
o Large extra dimensions – particle theorists who talked about extra dimensions before 5 years ago assumed these dimensions were rolled up smaller than a nucleus – how could they be millimeter size and not detected before then? (Experiments have since constrained them to be smaller than mm.)
· Topics I just think are fun:
o Neutrinos – oscillations or CP violation or just about anything…
o Pomerons.
o Penguin diagrams.
o Triple gauge boson couplings.
o Left-right symmetric theory.
o Glashow-Weinberg-Salam theory.