Standard Model

The Standard Model of particle interactions is one of the major achievements of fundamental science. Within this framework a wide range of phenomena can be described to an impressive degree of accuracy. As a matter of fact, few are the branches of Physics where the predictive power of a theory has been tested to such a level of precision. Nevertheless, a number of theoretical and experimental reasons lead physicists to believe that this theory cannot be the ultimate answer in particle physics. Examples in this respect are the lack of neutrino masses and the absence of gravity in the Standard Model. An important route to unveil physics beyond the Standard Model are precision tests of its internal consistency. These, however, require knowledge of the fundamental parameters of the Standard Model as accurately as possible, being one of our research lines.

A certain obstacle towards this feat is the fact that the strong interaction sector does not allow for a perturbative treatment, because the fundamental quark and gluon degrees of freedom are confined into the physical observable hadrons. Part of the IFAE Theory Group is concerned with approaches to the theory of strong interactions (QuantumChromoDynamics) in the region of low-energies where the hadronic degrees of freedom prevail. The pursued lines of research include Chiral Perturbation Theory, the expansion for a large number of colour degrees of freedom, QCD sum rules, non-relativistic QCD as well as models of QCD which can be solved analytically. Furthermore, aspects of Flavour Physics and CP violation, such as rare B decays, are currently being investigated by IFAE members. All together these studies allow for a better control of the influence of the Standard Model dynamics in processes investigated for example at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN.