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Fundamental Physics in 2025: Status, Decisive Targets, and Path Forward

Slava G. Turyshev

TL;DR

The paper articulates a 2025 roadmap for fundamental physics centered on the SM+GR+ΛCDM baseline, identifying empirical gaps (neutrino masses, dark matter, baryogenesis, dark energy) and outlining how to translate observables into EFT and UV-structured parameters. It emphasizes a unified, platform-agnostic approach where effective field theories, amplitudes/positivity, and global fits connect experimental data to UV completions, while acknowledging that most progress is now systematics- and theory-dominated rather than statistics-driven. The work lays out a comprehensive theory-frameworks toolkit (SMEFT, Chiral/Gravitational EFTs, bootstrap, lattice QCD, and nonperturbative methods) and a spectrum of experimental frontiers (colliders, precision probes, neutrinos, DM, cosmology, GWs), all organized by quantitative leverage and cross-checks. A central message is that decisive advances require redundancy and closure tests across independent channels, end-to-end inference pipelines, and clear decision thresholds, rather than isolated improvements in a single observable. The roadmap therefore prescribes staged, cross-validated goals (e.g., Higgs EFT closure, DM portfolio across targets, EDM/CLFV operator discrimination, and cross-survey cosmology closures) with explicit space/ground/astronomy tradeoffs and space-time transfer considerations, ultimately linking measurement to a falsifiable set of UV structures beyond SM+GR+ΛCDM.

Abstract

Fundamental physics today is best defined operationally: it is the program of identifying the microscopic degrees of freedom, symmetries, and dynamical laws that (i) reproduce the Standard Model (SM) of particle physics, General Relativity (GR), and the $Λ$CDM cosmological model in their regimes of validity, and (ii) explain the observed phenomena that these baseline theories do not account for (dark matter, neutrino masses, baryogenesis, dark energy), while resolving conceptual inconsistencies (quantum gravity, naturalness, the cosmological constant problem, the measurement problem in quantum theory, information in black holes) and providing predictive unification. This review first lays out the SM+GR+$Λ$CDM baseline, the best current evidence for its parameters, and the concrete anomalies and missing ingredients. It then surveys the most relevant theoretical directions (effective field theories; amplitude/positivity programs; lattice and many-body methods; symmetry-based model building; cosmological EFTs; quantum information approaches to QFT/gravitation) and the experimental/observational landscape, including ground and space platforms, astronomical messengers, and in-situ tests. Throughout we emphasize: (a) how each observable maps to energy scales and couplings; (b) the dominant statistical and systematic limitations; (c) the sensitivity required for decisive progress. A staged roadmap is given only after the technical review, organized by decision points and cross-checks rather than by specific projects.

Fundamental Physics in 2025: Status, Decisive Targets, and Path Forward

TL;DR

The paper articulates a 2025 roadmap for fundamental physics centered on the SM+GR+ΛCDM baseline, identifying empirical gaps (neutrino masses, dark matter, baryogenesis, dark energy) and outlining how to translate observables into EFT and UV-structured parameters. It emphasizes a unified, platform-agnostic approach where effective field theories, amplitudes/positivity, and global fits connect experimental data to UV completions, while acknowledging that most progress is now systematics- and theory-dominated rather than statistics-driven. The work lays out a comprehensive theory-frameworks toolkit (SMEFT, Chiral/Gravitational EFTs, bootstrap, lattice QCD, and nonperturbative methods) and a spectrum of experimental frontiers (colliders, precision probes, neutrinos, DM, cosmology, GWs), all organized by quantitative leverage and cross-checks. A central message is that decisive advances require redundancy and closure tests across independent channels, end-to-end inference pipelines, and clear decision thresholds, rather than isolated improvements in a single observable. The roadmap therefore prescribes staged, cross-validated goals (e.g., Higgs EFT closure, DM portfolio across targets, EDM/CLFV operator discrimination, and cross-survey cosmology closures) with explicit space/ground/astronomy tradeoffs and space-time transfer considerations, ultimately linking measurement to a falsifiable set of UV structures beyond SM+GR+ΛCDM.

Abstract

Fundamental physics today is best defined operationally: it is the program of identifying the microscopic degrees of freedom, symmetries, and dynamical laws that (i) reproduce the Standard Model (SM) of particle physics, General Relativity (GR), and the CDM cosmological model in their regimes of validity, and (ii) explain the observed phenomena that these baseline theories do not account for (dark matter, neutrino masses, baryogenesis, dark energy), while resolving conceptual inconsistencies (quantum gravity, naturalness, the cosmological constant problem, the measurement problem in quantum theory, information in black holes) and providing predictive unification. This review first lays out the SM+GR+CDM baseline, the best current evidence for its parameters, and the concrete anomalies and missing ingredients. It then surveys the most relevant theoretical directions (effective field theories; amplitude/positivity programs; lattice and many-body methods; symmetry-based model building; cosmological EFTs; quantum information approaches to QFT/gravitation) and the experimental/observational landscape, including ground and space platforms, astronomical messengers, and in-situ tests. Throughout we emphasize: (a) how each observable maps to energy scales and couplings; (b) the dominant statistical and systematic limitations; (c) the sensitivity required for decisive progress. A staged roadmap is given only after the technical review, organized by decision points and cross-checks rather than by specific projects.
Paper Structure (196 sections, 73 equations, 2 figures, 9 tables)

This paper contains 196 sections, 73 equations, 2 figures, 9 tables.

Table of Contents

  1. Introduction
  2. Fundamental physics today
  3. A quantitative perspective
  4. Methodological unity across scales
  5. The baseline theory framework: SM + GR + LambdaCDM
  6. Standard Model: structure, parameters, and precision status
  7. Dimension-5 neutrino mass operator (Weinberg).
  8. Quantitative success.
  9. Where the SM is incomplete (empirical).
  10. Where the SM is incomplete (conceptual).
  11. General Relativity: EFT view, classical tests, and open regimes
  12. Precision EP and ISL tests.
  13. Strong-field and dynamical tests.
  14. LambdaCDM: parameters, tensions, and the role of late- and early-universe probes
  15. Open problems: concrete targets and scales
  16. ...and 181 more sections

Figures (2)

  • Figure 1: Baseline theory framework (SM+GR+LambdaCDM) and the empirically motivated "missing ingredients" and conceptual gaps that define the decision problems summarized in Table \ref{['tab:openproblems']}.
  • Figure 2: Schematic "translation chain" corresponding to Eq. (\ref{['eq:approach']}): instrument and selection effects enter through an explicit likelihood with nuisance parameters, which maps to EFT coefficients and then to UV model classes.