Flavor Physics Research Articles

Modeling theoretical uncertainties in phenomenological analyses for particle physics

The determination of the fundamental parameters of the Standard Model (and its extensions) is often limited by the presence of statistical and theoretical uncertainties. We present several models for the latter uncertainties (random, nuisance, external) in the frequentist framework, and we derive the corresponding p values. In the case of the nuisance approach where theoretical uncertainties are modeled as biases, we highlight the important, but arbitrary, issue of the range of variation chosen for the bias parameters. We introduce the concept of adaptive p value, which is obtained by adjusting the range of variation for the bias according to the significance considered, and which allows us to tackle metrology and exclusion tests with a single and well-defined unified tool, which exhibits interesting frequentist properties. We discuss how the determination of fundamental parameters is impacted by the model chosen for theoretical uncertainties, illustrating several issues with examples from quark flavor physics.

Precision tests of the Standard Model: RareB-meson decays

The charge given to me by the organisers of the memorial meeting for Prof. Abdus Salam’s 90th birthday is to recall my personal impressions of him and review an aspect of the standard model (SM) physics related to my work. Salam was, first and foremost, a brilliant theoretical physicist whose work is still very much en vogue, currently being tested precisely by the experiments at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). Salam was, however, equally effective as a scientific advisor to many institutions, such as IAEA and CERN, but also to the government of Pakistan as the chief scientific strategist. He was also an untiring advocate of scientific research and higher education in developing countries, which took a concrete form in the International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP) in Trieste. I discuss these aspects of his scientific life seen from my perspective in the first part. In the second part of my talk, which may appear as a disjoint piece to the first, I summarise some selected topics in rare B-decays — the current flavour physics frontier. Experiments carried out over several decades are largely in agreement with the SM, thanks also to dedicated theoretical effort in their interpretation. However, this field is undergoing an anomalous phase in a number of key measurements, in particular reported by LHCb, triggering a very lively debate and model building. These anomalies, which I review here, are too numerous to be ignored, but none is individually significant enough to announce a breakdown of the SM.

Performance of the LHCb RICH detectors during the LHC Run II

The LHCb RICH system provides hadron identification over a wide momentum range (2–100GeV/c). This detector system is key to LHCb's precision flavour physics programme, which has unique sensitivity to physics beyond the standard model. This paper reports on the performance of the LHCb RICH in Run II, following significant changes in the detector and operating conditions. The changes include the refurbishment of significant number of photon detectors, assembled using new vacuum technologies, and the removal of the aerogel radiator. The start of Run II of the LHC saw the beam energy increase to 6.5TeV per beam and a new trigger strategy for LHCb with full online detector calibration. The RICH information has also been made available for all trigger streams in the High Level Trigger for the first time.

Dark matter physics, flavor physics and LHC constraints in the dark matter model with a bottom partner

In the scenario that dark matter (DM) is a weakly interacting massive particle, there are many possibilities of the interactions with the Standard Model (SM) particles to achieve the relic density of DM. In this paper, we consider a simple DM model where the DM candidate is a complex scalar boson. The model contains a new complex gauge singlet scalar boson and a new fermion whose gauge charge is the same as the right-handed down-type quark. We dub the new fermion the bottom partner. These new particles have Yukawa interactions with the SM down-type quarks. The DM candidate interacts with the SM particles through the Yukawa interactions. The Yukawa interactions are not only relevant to the annihilation process of the DM but also contribute to the flavor physics, such as the ΔF = 2 processes. In addition, the flavor alignment of the Yukawa couplings is related to the decay modes of the bottom partner, and thus we can find the explicit correlations among the physical observables in DM physics, flavor physics, and the signals at the LHC. We survey the ΔF = 2 processes based on the numerical analyses of the thermal relic density, the direct detection of the DM, and the current LHC bounds. We investigate the perturbative bound on the Yukawa coupling as well. A Study of a fermionic DM model with extra scalar quarks is also given for comparison.

Finite-volume QED corrections to decay amplitudes in lattice QCD

We demonstrate that the leading and next-to-leading finite-volume effects in the evaluation of leptonic decay widths of pseudoscalar mesons at $O(\ensuremath{\alpha})$ are universal; i.e. they are independent of the structure of the meson. This is analogous to a similar result for the spectrum but with some fundamental differences, most notably the presence of infrared divergences in decay amplitudes. The leading nonuniversal, structure-dependent terms are of $O(1/{L}^{2})$ [compared to the $O(1/{L}^{3})$ leading nonuniversal corrections in the spectrum]. We calculate the universal finite-volume effects, which requires an extension of previously developed techniques to include a dependence on an external three-momentum (in our case, the momentum of the final-state lepton). The result can be included in the strategy proposed in Ref. [N. Carrasco et al.,Phys. Rev. D 91, 074506 (2015).] for using lattice simulations to compute the decay widths at $O(\ensuremath{\alpha})$, with the remaining finite-volume effects starting at order $O(1/{L}^{2})$. The methods developed in this paper can be generalized to other decay processes, most notably to semileptonic decays, and hence open the possibility of a new era in precision flavor physics.

The Belle II imaging Time-of-Propagation (iTOP) detector

High precision flavor physics measurements are an essential complement to the direct searches for new physics at the LHC ATLAS and CMS experiments. Such measurements will be performed using the upgraded Belle II detector that will take data at the SuperKEKB accelerator. With 40x the luminosity of KEKB, the detector systems must operate efficiently at much higher rates than the original Belle detector. A central element of the upgrade is the barrel particle identification system. Belle II has built and installed an imaging-Time-of-Propagation (iTOP) detector. The iTOP uses quartz optics as Cherenkov radiators. The photons are transported down the quartz bars via total internal reflection with a spherical mirror at the forward end to reflect photons to the backward end where they are imaged onto an array of segmented Micro-Channel Plate Photo-Multiplier Tubes (MCP-PMTs). The system is read out using giga-samples per second waveform sampling Application-Specific Integrated Circuits (ASICs). The combined timing and spatial distribution of the photons for each event are used to determine particle species. This paper provides an overview of the iTOP system.

Tensions in the flavour sector

Flavour physics is currently well described by the Standard Model except for some measurements which could be signalling new physics. We briefly summarize the status of tensions in rare exclusive semi-leptonic $B$ decays and in $R_{K/D^{(\ast)}}$ ratios. We also address the issue of the long standing tension in the $|V_{cb}|$ and $|V_{ub}|$ exclusive/inclusive determinations.

Naturalness from a composite top?

We consider a theory with composite top quarks but an elementary Higgs boson. The hierarchy problem can be solved by supplementing TeV scale top compositeness with either supersymmetry or Higgs compositeness appearing at the multi-TeV scale. The Higgs boson couples to uncolored partons within the top quark. We study how this approach can give rise to a novel screening effect that suppresses production of the colored top partners at the LHC. Strong constraints arise from Z to overline{b}b , as well potentially from flavor physics. Independent of flavor considerations, current constraints imply a compositeness scale ≳ TeV; this implies that the model is likely tuned at the percent level. Four top quark production at the LHC is a smoking-gun probe of this scenario. New CP violation in D meson mixing is also possible.

The 2nd International Conference on Particle Physics and Astrophysics

The 2nd International Conference on Particle Physics and Astrophysics (ICPPA-2016) was held in Moscow, Russia, from October 10 to 14, 2016. The conference is organized by the National Research Nuclear University “MEPhI”. The aim of the Conference is to promote contacts between scientists and to develop new ideas in fundamental research. We bring together experts and young scientists working on experimental and theoretical aspects of nuclear, particle and astroparticle physics and cosmology.The conference covers a wide range of topics such as accelerator physics, (astro) particle physics, cosmic rays, cosmology and methods of experimental physics: detectors and instruments. These directions are unified by development of the Standard Model which is evidently not complete. There are deviations from the Standard Model: neutrino oscillations, the dark matter existence. Together with strong interactions they are main subjects of the Conference.New results from leading high energy physics collaborations are discussed. Main LHC experiments (ATLAS, CMS, ALICE) presented their results and detector upgrade prospects on the conference. Various aspects of Standard Model testing and search for new phenomena are main subjects of the conference. Among them: flavor physics at B factories, precision multi-boson production measurements, dark matter searches.Electroweak interaction was discussed in the talks given by participants of neutrino physics experiments (Borexino, Neutrino-4, SOX, T2K and others). Enigmatic properties of neutrinos such as their tiny masses, oscillations between different neutrino types, cannot be explained in frame of the modern theory and require new approaches. Properties of neutrinos influenced the formation of the large-scale structure of the Universe and may be neutrinos are partially responsible for the excess of matter over anti-matter. Also our current challenge is the nature of the Dark matter. Many opportunities arise with the development of neutrino detection technologies comprising: measurements of neutrinos from the Sun, measurements of geo-neutrino from the deep interior of the Earth, detecting neutrino fluxes from supernovae and different astrophysical sources. They were the subject of discussion which have been held at the conference. Neutrino physics experiments make huge demands to technologies like ultra-high precision measurements, huge detector size, excellent reliability and ultra-low radioactive background.AcknowledgmentsWe are thankful to Anotonova M M, Buzhan P Zh, Gurov Yu B, Vdovkina S S, Zherebtsova E S, Esipova E A, Kovylyaeva A A, Kozlov E S, Koshelenko D D, Matveev N A, Mayorov A G, Nigmatkulov G A, Novikov A S, Svadkovsky I V, Smirnov Yu S, Voronov S A and Yurin K O for the assistance in organizing the conference and heavy work on proceedings.Conference organizers would like to express their gratitude to the TFT company (supply and maintenance of CAEN equipment, delivery of equipment and components for scientific research) for their support.

Constraining top-Higgs couplings at high and low energy

The study of the couplings of the Higgs boson and of the top quark plays a preeminent role at the LHC, and could unveil the first signs of new physics. I will discuss the interplay of direct and indirect probes of certain classes of top and Higgs couplings. Including constraints from collider observables, precision electroweak tests, flavor physics, and electric dipole moments (EDMs), I will show that indirect probes are competitive, if not dominant, for both the CP-even and CP-odd top and Higgs couplings we considered. I will discuss the role of theoretical uncertainties, associated with hadronic and nuclear matrix elements, and indicate targets to further improve the constraining power of EDM experiments.

16th International Conference on Strangeness in Quark Matter (SQM2016)

The Strangeness and Heavy Flavor in Quark Matter in 2016 (SQM2016) conference was held on the beautiful Clark Kerr Campus of the University of California, Berkeley. SQM2016 conference follows a series of conferences with a long tradition of focusing on special topics of strangeness and heavy flavor physics in nuclear collisions. The most recent two conferences in the series were held at Dubna, Russia (SQM2015) and Birmingham, UK (SQM2014).The SQM2016 conference has taken place while heavy-ion research programs at both RHIC and the LHC continue to generate exciting results. The completion of the Heavy Flavor Tracker (HFT) for STAR and the VTX for PHENIX as well as the campaign for heavy quark physics at RHIC have ushered in an exciting era for heavy quark physics at RHIC. The experiments at the LHC - ALICE, ALTAS, CMS and LHCb – continue to advance the energy frontier. We are very pleased and grateful that many experimental and theoretical results were presented at the conference, mostly by young physicists who represent the future of our growing field.We have also used the occasion to dedicate one session for the celebration of scientific achievements made by a pioneer physicist in our community, namely Dr. Grazyna Odyniec. She has made remarkable contributions to measurements of strangeness production and collective motion in nuclear collisions. Moreover, she is also a founding member of the SQM conference series.We would like to thank the International Advisory Committee members for their efforts in shaping the scientific program of the SQM2016 conference. The Local Organizing Committee includes X. Dong (LBNL), H.Z. Huang (UCLA), V. Koch (LBNL), A. Schmah (LBNL), R. Seto (UCR), J. Thäder (LBNL), J. Thomas (LBNL) and N. Xu (LBNL). The conference was hosted by the Nuclear Science Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. We gratefully acknowledge Ms. Lady Bonifacio for her service as a conference coordinator. We thank BNL, CCNU, EMMI, HIC for FAIR, LBNL, NWO, ORNL, UCLA and UCR for their sponsorship of the conference.The SQM2017 conference will be hosted by University of Utrecht, Netherlands in July 2017.Huan Zhong Huang (UCLA), Richard Seto (UCR), Jochen Thäder (LBNL) and Nu Xu (LBNL)Editors

Heavy flavor Production and Interactions in Relativistic Heavy-Ion Collisions in CMS Experiment

This paper presents the CMS measurements of quarkonia and open heavy flavor production in p-p, p-Pb, and Pb-Pb collisions at and 5.02 TeV. A brief outlook of the near-future CMS heavy flavor physics analyses is provided at the end.

Kaon Flavour Physics Strikes Back

In this short presentation I emphasize the increased importance of kaon flavour physics in the search for new physics (NP) that we should witness in the rest of this decade and in the next decade. The main actors will be the branching ratios for the rare decays and , to be measured by NA62 and KOTO, and their correlations with the ratio ε′/ε on which recently progress by lattice QCD and large N dual QCD approach has been made implying a new flavour anomaly. Further correlations of , and ε′/ε with εK, ΔMK, KL → μ+ μ− and will help us to identify indirectly possible NP at short distance scales. This talk summarizes the present highlights of this facinating field including some results from concrete NP scenarios.

Correlations and ridge inpPb collisions in the LHCb Experiment

The LHCb experiment, besides its main programme concerning flavour physics performs also very well as a general purpose forward detector, covering the pseudo-rapidity range from 2.0 to 5.0. Exploiting the experiment’s unique geometry, the LHCb collaboration is pursuing a rich programme of forward QCD measurements. In particular two-particle angular correlations are studied in proton-lead collisions at a nucleon-nucleon centre-of-mass energy of √ S NN = 5 TeV, with data collected by the LHCb detector at the LHC in 2013. The analysis is based on data recorded in two opposing beam configurations, in which either the direction of the proton or that of the lead remnants is analysed. This is the first measurement of a long-range correlation on the near side in proton-lead collisions in the forward region. It extends previous observations in the central region.

The role of pixel detectors in high energy physics

A number of new types of pixel detector systems have been pioneered in the last decade. These include new types of sensors as well as new electronics to allow much higher performance. At the same time new experiments are being planned or nearing completion covering a broad range of physics topics in flavour physics as well as large major upgrades at the LHC. These are planning to make use of the advances in pixel detectors in important ways. In this review both the pixel advances and how they enable the physics will be presented.

Phenomenology of an SU(2) × SU(2) × U(1) model with lepton-flavour non-universality

We investigate a gauge extension of the Standard Model in light of the observed hints of lepton universality violation in $b \to c \ell \nu$ and $b \to s \ell^+ \ell^-$ decays at BaBar, Belle and LHCb. The model consists of an extended gauge group $\mathrm{SU(2)}_{1} \times \mathrm{SU(2)}_{2} \times \mathrm{U(1)}_Y$ which breaks spontaneously around the TeV scale to the electroweak gauge group. Fermion mixing effects with vector-like fermions give rise to potentially large new physics contributions in flavour transitions mediated by $W^{\prime}$ and $Z^{\prime}$ bosons. This model can ease tensions in $B$-physics data while satisfying stringent bounds from flavour physics, tau decays, and electroweak precision data. Possible ways to test the proposed new physics scenario with upcoming experimental measurements are discussed. Among other predictions, the lepton flavour violating ratios $R_M$, with $M = K^*, \phi$, are found to be reduced with respect to the Standard Model expectation $R_M \simeq 1$.

Physics benchmarks of the VELO upgrade

The LHCb Experiment at the LHC is successfully performing precision measurements primarily in the area of flavour physics. The collaboration is preparing an upgrade that will start taking data in 2021 with a trigger-less readout at five times the current luminosity. The vertex locator has been crucial in the success of the experiment and will continue to be so for the upgrade. It will be replaced by a hybrid pixel detector and this paper discusses the performance benchmarks of the upgraded detector. Despite the challenging experimental environment, the vertex locator will maintain or improve upon its benchmark figures compared to the current detector. Finally the long term plans for LHCb, beyond those of the upgrade currently in preparation, are discussed.

Flavor physics induced by light Z′ from SO(10) GUT

In this paper, we investigate predictions of the SO(10) Grand Unified Theory (GUT), where an extra U(1)$^\prime$ gauge symmetry remains up to the supersymmetry (SUSY) breaking scale. The minimal setup of SO(10) GUT unifies quarks and leptons into a ${\bf 16}$-representational field in each generations. The setup, however, suffers from the realization of the realistic Yukawa couplings at the electroweak scale. In order to solve this problem, we introduce ${\bf 10}$-representational matter fields, and then the two kinds of matter fields mix with each other at the SUSY breaking scale, where the extra U(1)$^\prime$ gauge symmetry breaks down radiatively. One crucial prediction is that the Standard Model quarks and leptons are given by the linear combinations of the fields with two different U(1)$^\prime$ charges. The mixing also depends on the flavor. Consequently, the U(1)$^\prime$ interaction becomes flavor violating, and the flavor physics is the smoking-gun signal of our GUT model. The flavor violating $Z'$ couplings are related to the fermion masses and the CKM matrix, so that we can derive some explicit predictions in flavor physics. We especially discuss $K$-$\overline{K}$ mixing, $B_{(s)}$-$\overline{B_{(s)}}$ mixing, and the (semi)leptonic decays of $K$ and $B$ in our model. We also study the flavor violating $\mu$ and $\tau$ decays and discuss the correlations among the physical observables in this SO(10) GUT framework.

Neutral B-meson Mixing and CP Violation at LHCb

The LHCb detector is a single-arm forward spectrometer that collects data at the LHC, designed for studies of flavour physics with high precision. We present a selection of recent measurements of mixing and CP-violating parameters, including sin 2β and weak phase ϕ s, using several decays. A good understanding of the pollution from sub-leading penguin to pologies in these measurements can be achieved by measuring CP violation and polarization in the decay Bs0→Jψ⁄K0* and B0→Jψ⁄ ρ0. All results here presented are obtained using the full Run I dataset.

4D fast tracking for experiments at high luminosity LHC

The full exploitation of the physics potential of the high luminosity LHC is a big challenge that requires new instrumentation and innovative solutions. We present here a conceptual design and simulation studies of a fast timing pixel detector with embedded real-time tracking capabilities. The system is conceived to operate at 40 MHz event rate and to reconstruct tracks in real-time, using precise space and time 4D information of the hit, for fast trigger decisions. This work is part of an R&D project aimed at building an innovative tracking detector with superior time (10 ps) and position (10 μm) resolutions to be used in very harsh radiation environments, for the ultimate flavour physics experiment at the high luminosity phase of the LHC.