Peter W. Graham

Graham was born to Wayne Wickelgren and Norma Graham. He has 4 siblings including mathematician Kirsten Wickelgren and American lawyer Abraham Wickelgren. He graduated from Stuyvesant High School.{{Cite web|last=Harvard Alumni Association Class Report Office|date=2018-03-14|title=Wayne Allen Wickelgren|url=https://h1960.classes.harvard.edu/article.html?aid=448|access-date=2024-06-19|website=Harvard|language=en-US}} He is grandson of psychologist Frances K. Graham and great-grandson of surgeon Evarts Ambrose Graham.{{citation|last=Mueller|first=C. B.|title=Evarts A. Graham: The Life & Times of the Surgical Spirit of St. Louis|location= Hamilton, Ontario|publisher=BC Decker|year=2002}}

Graham attended Harvard University, graduating with an AB and AM in 2002. He studied physics. He received a Ph.D. in physics from Stanford University in 2007.{{Cite web|last=Graham|first=Peter|date=2018-03-14|title=Peter Graham|url=https://profiles.stanford.edu/peter-graham?releaseVersion=7.5.2|access-date=2024-07-03|website=Stanford Profiles|language=en-US}} He was advised by Savas Dimopoulos.{{Cite web|date=2018-03-14|title=Peter W. Graham|url=https://breakthroughprize.org/Laureates/1/L3800|access-date=2024-07-03|website=Fundamental Physics Breakthrough Prize|language=en-US}}

Graham became an assistant professor at Stanford in 2010.{{Cite web|last=Graham|first=Peter|title=Peter Graham|url=https://sitp.stanford.edu/people/peter-graham|access-date=2024-07-03|website=Stanford Institute for Theoretical Physics|language=en-US}}

He is interested in physics beyond the Standard Model, both theoretically and through proposals for novel experiments using techniques from astrophysics, atomic physics, and solid-state physics.

He proposed, with Surjeet Rajendran and others, the Cosmic Axion Spin Precession Experiment (CASPEr),Dmitry Budker, Peter W. Graham, Micah Ledbetter, Surjeet Rajendran, Alex Sushkov, Cosmic Axion Spin Precession Experiment (CASPEr), Phys. Rev. X 4, 2014, 021030, [https://arxiv.org/abs/1306.6089 Arxiv, 2013] which aims to detect axions as candidates for dark matter using NMR, and the DM Radio Pathfinder Experiment, which aims to search for dark matter in the hidden photon and axion sector using magnetometry and electromagnetic resonance.Maximiliano Silva-Feaver, Saptarshi Chaudhuri, Hsiao-Mei Cho, Carl Dawson, Peter Graham, Kent Irwin, Stephen Kuenstner, Dale Li, Jeremy Mardon, Harvey Moseley, Richard Mule, Arran Phipps, Surjeet Rajendran, Zach Steffen, Betty Young: Design Overview of the DM Radio Pathfinder Experiment, [https://arxiv.org/abs/1610.09344 Arxiv], 2016 He also proposed, with Rajendran and others, to detect gravitational waves using atom interferometry.Peter W. Graham, Jason M. Hogan, Mark A. Kasevich, Surjeet Rajendran, A New Method for Gravitational Wave Detection with Atomic Sensors, Phys.Rev.Lett., Band 110, 2013, S. 171102

Together with David Kaplan and Surjeet Rajendran, he proposed a solution to the hierarchy problem with dynamic relaxation in the early universe instead of, as is usually the case, with new physics (such as supersymmetry, extra dimensions) on the electroweak scale of the Standard Model (or the Anthropic Principle The anthropic principle and the mass scale of the Standard Model, [https://arxiv.org/abs/hep-ph/9707380 V. Agrawal, S.M. Barr, J.F. Donoghue, D. Seckel, The anthropic principle and the mass scale of the Standard Model], Phys. Rev. D 57, 1998, S. :5480-5492).Peter W. Graham, David E. Kaplan, Surjeet Rajendran, Cosmological Relaxation of the Electroweak Scale, Phys. Rev. Lett., Band 115, 2015, S. 221801, [https://arxiv.org/abs/1504.07551 Arxiv] According to Graham's model, the relaxation field that determines the inflation dynamics also determines the Higgs mass, and the value of the relaxation field today is close to one of its many local minima. At the beginning of the universe, however, it had much higher values, with an associated Higgs mass possibly on the Planck scale.[https://physics.aps.org/articles/v8/113 Michael Dine, Viewpoint: Connecting the Higgs Mass with Cosmic History], APS, November 2015[https://www.quantamagazine.org/20150527-a-new-theory-to-explain-the-higgs-mass/ Natalie Wolchover, A New Theory to Explain the Higgs Mass, Quanta Magazine 2015] In the simplest version, the model of Graham and colleagues includes, in addition to the Standard Model, inflation and a QCD axion that is identified with the relaxation. As soon as the quarks acquire mass via the Higgs field, the axion/relaxion field is conversely frozen by interaction with the quarks. The model was inspired by a similar mechanism that Larry Abbott used in 1984 to explain why the cosmological constant is so small.L. F. Abbott, A Mechanism for Reducing the Value of the Cosmological Constant, Phys. Lett. B, Band 150, 1985, S. 427 The simplest version of the model, which identifies the relaxation ion with the axion, has been criticized by others and probably needs to be modified.[https://arxiv.org/abs/1509.00047 Rick S. Gupta, Zohar Komargodski, Gilad Perez, Lorenzo Ubaldi, Is the relaxion an axion ?], 2015 The axion is already a candidate for dark matter and was originally introduced as a solution to the strong CP problem in the Standard Model. The model of Graham and colleagues also attracted attention because no supersymmetric particles, which until then were considered the most promising explanation of the hierarchy problem, had been discovered at the LHC.

In 2017, he received the New Horizons in Physics Prize with Asimina Arvanitaki and Surjeet Rajendran for developing new experimental tests of physics beyond the Standard Model. In 2014, he received an Early Career Award from the Department of Energy and was a Terman Fellow at Stanford.{{Cite web|last=Graham|first=Peter|date=2018-03-14|title=Peter Graham|url=https://profiles.stanford.edu/peter-graham?releaseVersion=7.5.2|access-date=2024-07-03|website=Stanford Profiles|language=en-US}}

Graham has 2 children with his wife Lauren Graham, named Keira and Ashley.{{Cite web|date=2018-03-14|title=Peter W. Graham|url=https://breakthroughprize.org/Laureates/1/L3800|access-date=2024-07-03|website=Fundamental Physics Breakthrough Prize|language=en-US}}

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