Rare particle decays: stress-test of the Standard Model and a window to the unknown

The facilities at CERN offer a unique opportunity to study the fundamental properties of particles and their      interactions. The Standard Model of particle physics has proven incredibly successful in describing microscopic phenomena and outlines the limits of our knowledge today. To push beyond these limits, we continue our exploration by testing the predictions of the Standard Model with greater and greater precision using intense particle beams and state-of-the-art experimental techniques.

In this lecture, I will show how we can use rare processes to precisely test the predictions of our best particle physics theory and greatly constrain the space for possible physics beyond the Standard Model.

Bio
Born in Svishtov, Bulgaria, in 1990, Radoslav received his BSc degree in Astrophysics from Sofia University in 2013. He decided to pursue research in particle physics and in Mainz, Germany where he was accepted as a fast-track fellow. He completed his PhD studies in 2019 as a part of the NA62 experimental group led by Dr. Rainer Wanke, sharing his time between Mainz and CERN. Radoslav was actively involved in the construction, commissioning and operation of the NA62 hadron calorimeter and had a leading role in the measurement of the ultra-rare kaon decay K+→π+νν, which is the flagship measurement of NA62. He continued his research as a postdoctoral research fellow at CERN and the University of Florence. In 2022 he joined the ATLAS group at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel, working on novel techniques to search for particles beyond the Standard Model.

Radoslav’s main research interest is oriented towards the study of extremely rare processes, in particular in the kaon sector. Rare kaon processes are among the most suppressed in the Standard Model and have high potential of uncovering physics beyond the Standard Model.

Joining EPFL in January 2023, Radoslav is expanding the scope of particle physics research at EPFL and Switzerland by adding kaon physics and participation in the NA62 experiment to its list. He is also part of the LHCb experiment, involved in physics analyses and detector development.