Colloquium

The nature of matter is perhaps one of the most ancient mysteries of science. Today, physicists still grapple with profound questions about matter: 1) What is the origin of mass of the fundamental particles? 2) Why are there more particles than antiparticles in the universe? 3) What is the nature of Dark Matter, which is fundamentally different from the matter we know, and which provides about a quarter of the mass/energy balance in the universe? I will explore theoretical answers to these questions coming from particle physics, explain how these mysteries may be related within the context of TeV-scale Supersymmetry, and discuss how current and future experiments might confirm or refute these ideas.