SUSYFLAVOUR · Flavour Violation in Supersymmetric Extensions of the Standard Model

Flavour Violation in Supersymmetric Extensions of the Standard Model

The aim of theoretical high energy physics is to understand the fundamental constituents and interactions of matter at extremely small scales. These interactions are currently described by the Standard Model of particle physics. The model is currently tested by the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN where one searches for new undiscovered particles. The way to discover these new particles if two-fold: one can either try to produce them directly at very energetic collisions, or one can search for quantum effects of these new particle by precision measurements of properties of know particles. Concerning the latter strategy, flavour physics is very promising. All matter particles in nature occur in three different generations or “flavours” which have identical properties except for the mass. In the Standard Model transitions among different flavour are stringently suppressed. Therefore, even small new physics contributions can give a sizable effect compared to the Standard Model. While in the past there was a quite good agreement between data and theory, the LHCb experiment at CERN found several deviations from the expectations within the Standard Model. Furthermore, also the CMS and the ATLAS experiment at CERN found hints on a flavour changing decay of the Higgs boson. My main research focus during my Marie Curie Fellowship was to find theoretical explanations of these discrepancies between the Standard Model predictions and experiment in terms of new physics, i.e. new undiscovered particles. In fact, I wrote several articles, published in primary scientific journals, which postulate new particles which successfully explain the measured data. Another field of research during my fellowship was Dark Matter. Dark Matter is assumed to consist of massive particles which do not interact electromagnetically. While its existence has been established on cosmological scales, very little is known about it specific properties. Here I focused on connecting direct detection experiments with searches for Dark Matter at the LHC via an effective field theory approach. I also proposed one model which combines flavour with Dark Matter by postulating that Dark Matter carries flavour charges. I also completed some work in the (Next-to-) Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model and wrote two article about the use of effective field theories in flavour physics in order to uncover new physics. All results were presented at many international conferences and at seminars at universities and research institutions. In this respect, I would like to point out my US trip (financed by the Marie Curie travel money) where I gave seminars and a colloquium at Argonne National Lab, Fermi National Lab, University of Hawaii and Berkeley National Lab. I also did outreach activities in order to inform the general public about theoretical particle physics. Among my outreach activities, I would like to mention my talk at the Gymnasium in Oberndorf a.N. and my two talks at the Studium Generale of the Business School Schwarzwald-Neckar which were reported in several local newspaper articles (see attachments).

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