Speaker
Description
Pions are fantastic tools to look for new physics! The PIENU experiment at TRIUMF has provided, to date, the most precise experimental determination of $R^{\pi}_{e/\mu}$, the ratio of pions decaying to positrons relative to muons. While more than an order of magnitude less precise that the Standard Model (SM) calculation, the PIENU result is a precise test of the universality of charged leptons interaction, a key principle of the Standard Model (SM), constrains a large range of new physics scenario, and allows dedicated searches for exotics such as sterile neutrinos.
I’ll go over a short overview of $R^{\pi}_{e/\mu}$ measurements and their entangled history with the development of the SM and introduce the next generation precision pion decay experiment in the making: PIONEER! This newly proposed experiment aims at pushing the boundaries of precision on $R^{\pi}_{e/\mu}$ and expanding the physics reach by improving on the measurement of the very rare pion beta decay $\pi^+\rightarrow \pi^0 e^+\nu$. This will provide a new and competitive input to the determination of $|V_{ud}|$, an element of the Cabibbo-Kobayashi-Maskawa (CKM) quark-mixing matrix.
| Your current academic level, | Professor/researcher |
|---|---|
| Your Email | chloe.m@cern.ch |
| Affiliation | TRIUMF |
