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96081 - ADVANCED STANDARD MODEL

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Academic Year 2022/2023

Learning outcomes

The course provides advanced knowledge of the theory of the Standard Model of elementary particle. The student will get acquainted with the properties and features of our current description of the fundamental particles and their interactions. Motivated by its theoretical limitations as well as by the current experimental observations, the students will then be exposed to the most common avenues towards extending the Standard Model and searching for new physics in high-energy experiments

Course contents

The course provides advanced knowledge of the theory of the Standard Model of elementary particle with open questions from a theoretical and phenomenological perspective.The course is divided into three parts.

The first part places a focus on neutrino physics (Neutrinos in the Standard Model. Neutrino oscillations in vacuum and in matter. Current status and open questions for the future. Nature and masses of neutrinos: Majorana and Dirac particles. Origin of neutrino masses beyond the Standard Model. The baryon asymmetry and leptogenesis. The problem of flavour in the lepton sector. Neutrinos in the Universe. Brief overview of dark matter).

The second part is on precision Standard Model physics (Lagrangian of the SM. Custodial Symmetry and the rho parameter. Linear and non-linear EW symmetry breaking. EW chiral Lagrangian. Unitarity and perturbativity of the SM. Higgs mass bounds: unitarity, triviality and stability. EW precision-observables (EWPO) and renormalisation schemes. Higgs phenomenology: decays and production. Top-quark phenomenology: decays and single and pair production).

The third part is dedicated to effective field theories (Introduction. Motivation and basic concepts. Simple examples. Machinery and Tools: matching, power counting, equations of motion, running, toy models. Applications: Fermi Theory, Euler-Heinsenberg, FCNC, NRQED. The Standard Model as an Effective Field Theory: Linear and non-linear extensions. Phenomenology and constraints from precision experiments. SMEFT at the LHC and future colliders).

Readings/Bibliography

C. Giunti, C. W. Kim, Fundamentals of Neutrino Physics and Astrophysics, Oxford University Press, USA, 2007M. Schwartz, Quantum Field Theory and the Standard Model, Cambridge University Press, 2014

Teaching methods

Front teaching

Office hours

See the website of Fabio Maltoni

See the website of Davide Pagani

See the website of Silvia Pascoli