Descripción del proyecto
Un estudio sobre el problema del sabor podría aportar una nueva visión sobre las interacciones fundamentales
Uno de los grandes rompecabezas de la física teórica consiste en averiguar por qué se observan tres familias de partículas elementales que, en apariencia, son idénticas, pero difieren en su masa. El objetivo del proyecto FLAY, financiado con fondos europeos, es arrojar más luz sobre estas partículas fundamentales que presentan distintos sabores. Los investigadores combinarán un planteamiento ascendente de los datos sobre la física de los sabores con planteamientos descendentes sobre el origen de las jerarquías de sabores. Los datos experimentales sobre quarks y leptones, que tienen en cuenta tanto los observables de alta energía como los de baja energía, podrían insinuar desviaciones de las predicciones del modelo estándar, lo cual ampliaría el paradigma actual de las interacciones fundamentales.
Objetivo
Recent experimental results in flavor physics exhibit deviations from the Standard Model predictions that are growing with time, both as far as statistical significance and as far as internal consistency. Understanding the origin of this phenomenon, the so-called “flavor anomalies”, is of paramount importance for a deeper understanding of fundamental interactions. As recently shown by the PI and collaborators, this phenomenon is likely to be intimately related to the long-standing “flavor problem”, or the origin of the hierarchical pattern of quark and lepton mass matrices observed in Nature. The goal of this project is to shed light on both these issues, providing a solution to old and recent puzzles in flavor physics. We propose to address these questions via an original bottom-up approach, based on Effective Field Theory methods and simplified models, combined with new top-down ideas about the ultraviolet completion of the Standard Model. On the phenomenological side, the proposed bottom-up approach will allow us to exploit with the highest accuracy all the available and expected experimental data. It will allow us to take into account both low- and high-energy observables, as well as both quark and lepton sectors. These results will constitute the basis for the theoretical investigation of a new class of Standard Model extensions not considered so far. The latter are based on new ideas, such as flavor non-universal gauge interactions, that imply a change of paradigm in theoretical high-energy physics: the origin of the flavor hierarchies plays a central role in revealing the ultraviolet completion of the Standard Model. Combining a bottom-up approach to flavor-physics data with top-down ideas on the origin of the flavor hierarchies, this project has the potential to lead to a major advancement in fundamental physics.
Ámbito científico
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Régimen de financiación
ERC-ADG - Advanced GrantInstitución de acogida
8006 Zurich
Suiza