Physics Colloquium- Challenging the Standard Model of Particle Physics with Bottom Quarks

Bottom quarks are the second-heaviest type of quark known to us. They are also unusually long-lived because their most common decay modes are suppressed by small mixing parameters. This combination of properties makes bottom quarks especially sensitive to physics beyond the Standard Model. Several tensions between Standard-Model expectations and measurements at particle colliders have emerged in semileptonic bottom-quark decays. I will discuss these processes and the Standard-Model predictions, which depend on nonperturbative calculations of the strong interactions of the quarks using lattice quantum chromodynamics. If confirmed by future data from LHCb and Belle II in combination with improved calculations, the tensions would point to the existence of new elementary particles or forces. 

 ** Refreshments served from 2:45pm – 3:00pm in PAS 218.  Thank you. **