Silvia Ferreres Solé, PhD at Nikhef, will defend her thesis Monday 19 december 2022 at 13.00 at Maastricht University.
“The beauty of the rare”
The decay of a B meson (a subatomic particle) into two muons is the rarest of the particle processes ever measured in the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN, the world’s largest and most powerful particle accelator. This decay is as rare as finding a needle in 10.000 haystacks, making its detection a big challenge for particle physicists. Apart from its rareness, the relative rate at which such a process occurs is very sensitive to new and maybe unexpected fundamental particles or forces. This quality makes it a good probe of the current theory describing elementary particle physics, known as the Standard Model, and of physics lying beyond it. This thesis provides the measurement of the decay rate of the B meson decaying into two muons using the data gathered by the LHCb detector, one of the detectors in the LHC ring. The results obtained are world-leading precision results of such decay rates, providing some more insights into the laws ruling the inner working of nature at its most fundamental level.
“The beauty of the rare” (pdf)
The PhD defense will take place Monday 19 december, at 13.00 in the administrative office of Maastricht University, Minderbroedersberg 4-6, 6211 LK Maastricht.
The event will be broadcasted online here.
More information at the website of MU.
Supervisor: prof. dr. M.H.M. Merk
Co-supervisor: dr. J.A. de Vries
Contact: Silvia Ferreres Solé
