Flavour physics and the special role of the third generation

par Dr David Straub (Scuola Normale Superiore and INFN in Pisa)

mardi 17 avr. 2012, 11:00 → 12:00 Europe/Paris

Auditorium M. Vivargent (LAPP)

The quark sector of the Standard Model exhibits an approximate U(2)^3 flavour symmetry under which the first two generations transform as doublets and the third generation as singlets. This symmetry, broken in specific directions dictated by minimality, can explain the success of the CKM picture of flavour mixing and CP violation while allowing for observable deviations from it, as expected in most models of electroweak symmetry breaking. I discuss the consequences of this symmetry for flavour physics in the quark and lepton sectors in a general effective field theory framework as well as in two concrete examples: natural supersymmetry with split families and generic composite Higgs models.