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HEIndividual fellowship2023–2025

SNPF · Searching New Physics using Flavour

Horizon Europe — Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions

Duration
2023-10-01 → 2025-09-30
EU contribution
€210,789
Participants
1
Scheme
HORIZON-TMA-MSCA-PF-EF

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Results in brief

Searching New Physics using Flavour

The Standard Model of particle physics provides an exceptionally precise description of known elementary particles and their interactions, yet it cannot explain several fundamental phenomena such as the nature of dark matter or the origin of matter-antimatter asymmetry in the Universe. One of the most promising ways to reveal signs of new physics is through high-precision studies of flavour physics, where quarks change type (“flavour”). Experiments in Europe and worldwide are now reaching unprecedented accuracy, and fully exploiting their results requires theoretical predictions of comparable precision. Lattice QCD is the only first-principles method capable of computing the effects of the strong interaction with systematically improvable uncertainties. As lattice calculations have become increasingly precise, it has become essential to also include contributions that were previously neglected, such as the effects of electromagnetic interactions and strong isospin breaking. Incorporating these corrections consistently is crucial for producing reliable Standard-Model predictions for precision flavour observables. The SNPF project addressed two central challenges in this area, focusing on objectives that strengthen the theoretical foundations needed to test the Standard Model and to search for signs of new physics: - Objective 1: Precision determination of |Vus| through lattice QCD+QED calculations. The aim is to improve the theoretical description of hadronic processes that determine the CKM matrix element |Vus|, a key parameter governing weak interactions and an essential ingredient in tests of CKM unitarity. - Objective 2: First-principles determination of long-distance contributions to neutral D-meson mixing. These long-distance effects dominate the theoretical uncertainty in a process highly sensitive to potential contributions from new physics. Together, these objectives provide more robust theoretical input for interpreting precision flavour experiments and for exploring possible deviations from the Standard Model.

Data: CORDIS, © European Union

Project objective

After ten years from the discovery of the Higgs boson at CERN, which established the Standard Model (SM) of particle physics as the most accurate description of nature at its fundamental level, no direct sign of new physics (NP) beyond the SM has been observed. In order to make further progress in high-energy physics, it is necessary to improve the precision of theoretical SM predictions and search NP effects indirectly by looking for tiny discrepancies with experimental measurements. This proposal will make use of a combination of formal and numerical tools, in particular methods of numerical lattice quantum chromodynamics (QCD), to achieve this aim in the context of flavour physics. Two projects are proposed, which have the common goal of improving the precision on theoretical predictions of relevant flavour observables and share the difficulty of being dominated by hadronic effects that require non-perturbative lattice calculations.In the first project, I will study the leading electromagnetic and strong isospin breaking corrections to kaon semi-leptonic decays, providing a method to extract the relevant decay amplitudes from finite-volume (FV) Euclidean correlation functions evaluated on the lattice and computing analytically their FV dependence. This aims to determine the CKM matrix element Vus with sub-percent precision and hence to test the CKM matrix unitarity predicted by the SM. The goal of the second project is instead to obtain a first non-perturbative estimate of long-distance contributions to the mixing of neutral D mesons, which are dominant but poorly known, thus representing a limiting factor in the study of CP violation and NP effects in this process. This will be done by applying advanced reconstruction techniques to FV lattice spectral functions.This proposal will have a relevant impact on flavour physics and phenomenology, delivering new conceptual and algorithmic methods which will provide the foundations for future scientific progress.

Original text from CORDIS.

Participants

  • ORGANISATION EUROPEENNE POUR LA RECHERCHE NUCLEAIRE · GENEVE 23CoordinatorSwitzerland

Links

Data: CORDIS, © European Union