The Standard Model (SM) of particle physics provides an exceptionally accurate framework for describing most fundamental processes in nature. However, it leaves some critical questions unanswered, such as the origin of the observed matter-antimatter asymmetry in the universe. Physicists suspect that "New Physics" (NP) beyond the SM could offer solutions, to address these gaps, but no direct evidence has yet been observed at particle colliders. This implies that NP may either be extremely rare or manifest only at energy scales accessible through highly precise SM measurements. A particularly stringent prediction of the SM is lepton flavor universality (LFU), which says that all types of leptons interact similarly with other particles, the only difference being their mass. However, recent measurements in the decays of B hadrons have revealed potential deviations from LFU.
To explore this and other paths probing the SM in more detail, the LHCb experiment at the LHC at CERN has undergone a major upgrade for Run 3 of the LHC, which started in 2022. The upgraded experiment will produce an unprecedented number of beauty hadrons in proton-proton collisions with a rate five times higher than before. To select decays of interest, efficient real-time analysis systems are necessary. This poses exceptional computing demands, which can be met by heterogeneous systems based on many-core architectures, such as the Allen framework co-developed by ALPaCA members.
The ALPACA project aims to achieve three key objectives. First, it seeks to enhance the performance of the Allen framework, a cutting-edge real-time data processing system, to maximize its physics potential. Second, it will pioneer the study of lepton flavor universality (LFU) in specific semileptonic particle decays (b → c l ν) involving electrons. Finally, the project will guide the design of future experiments by generalising and expanding the Allen framework, ensuring it can meet the evolving demands of next-generation particle physics research.
