Speaker: Vincenzo Vagnoni（INFN）

Host: Prof. Gao Yuanning

Time: 15:00-16:00 pm, October 14, 2022, GMT+8

Venue: Koushare (https://www.koushare.com/lives/room/074854)

Abstract:

The Standard Model of Particle Physics has been extremely successful in describing the behaviour of all known fundamental particles so far. However, several crucial questions are still unanswered, and the structure of the Standard Model remains mysterious in many aspects. Amongst these, the reason why from an initially matter-antimatter symmetric universe right after the Big Bang, a matter-dominated universe had evolved leading to the disappearance of all antimatter, is one of the most fascinating question marks of modern physics. Flavour physics, with both its theoretical and experimental developments, aims at finding a solution to this conundrum. After a brief introduction on some of the open questions of the Standard Model, the approach to study matter-antimatter asymmetries at particle accelerators, involving measurements of the violation of the so-called CP symmetry, will be presented and discussed. A particle detector operating at the Large Hadron Collider in Geneva, namely LHCb, dedicated to such a study, will be described in some detail, along with a selection of flagship measurements. The LHCb experiment, that comprises nowadays about 1500 researchers from 90 institutes in 20 countries, is not only capable of providing measurements of CP symmetry violation, but also precision measurements necessary to understand QCD in the low transverse-momentum regime, notably including heavy-quark spectroscopy. Hence the most relevant LHCb measurements in the sector of heavy-quark spectroscopy will be presented too. The colloquium will be concluded with an overview of present and future opportunities, depicting the path towards the end of the Large Hadron Collider lifetime in the 2040’s.

Biography:

Vincenzo Vagnoni, Director of Research of the National Institute for Nuclear Physics (INFN), Italy, has been leading author of several CP violation measurements, notably including the first observation of CP violation in the decays of Bs mesons and the first observation of CP violation in the charm sector. In particular, the latter is considered to be amongst the most important findings of Large Hadron Collider experiments so far. He has been covering several management roles throughout his career, amongst which the responsibility of the High Energy Physics sector at INFN Bologna (ATLAS, CDF, CMS, LHCb and other experiments), the responsibility of all LHCb physics activities (LHCb Physics Coordination), and at present the responsibility for the management of the Italian effort in LHCb (research groups from 14 different institutes with about 150 researchers). Vincenzo Vagnoni is author of more than 700 physics papers and other products, and has been invited speaker at all major conferences, notably including a plenary talk at ICHEP, and summary talks at Beauty and Moriond QCD. Finally, he carries out colourful outreach activities to orient students to scientific and technological matters, with focus on particle physics, but not limited to, and has a strong commitment in the development of international cooperation in science, that is today, more than ever, a fundamental tool to unite humankind, in the respect of cultures and histories of all people in the world.

Source: School of Physics