First forum on rare kaon decays

21 Feb 2018, 08:00 → 23 Feb 2018, 18:00 UTC

Higgs Centre seminar room (4305) (James Clerk Maxwell Building)

Antonin Portelli (The University of Edinburgh)

Flavour Changing Neutral Current (FCNC) decays are extremely rare processes in particle physics which are forbidden at the classical level in the Standard Model. Therefore, they constitute attractive channels to try to observe new physics beyond the Standard Model. A particular family of such decays are the kaon decays where the final state is composed by a pion plus a lepton or neutrino pair. It is crucial that both theorists and experimentalists join forces to try to provide the most precise test possible of the Standard Model though rare decays.

The aim of this workshop is to bring together both communities to exchange ideas and shape future research activities on rare kaon decays. All the afternoons of the workshop are focused on thematic discussions, aiming at creating fruitful collaborations between the two communities. We wish to make this event a recurrent one, determining the frequency and location of future editions will be discussed during this first meeting.

The experimental research on rare kaon decays will be led by the ambitious NA62 experiment at CERN for the years to come (NA62 will take data until at least 2023). As this experiment started taking data last summer, it is a particularly important moment for theory and experiment to connect and understand how to maximise our chances to discover new physics through this program. On the other hand, the lattice QCD group at the Higgs Centre is working on starting this year the first physical simulations of rare kaon decays. Lattice calculations open the way to predict unknown Standard Model amplitudes which are dominated by non-perturbative hadronic phenomena. These calculations are more complex than most lattice computations and will only be possible thanks to the £4.5M DiRAC Extreme Scaling supercomputer that will be acquired by the University of Edinburgh this year.