Quarks and Leptons Flavour
Flavour physics, most generally, refers to that branch of physics that investigates the properties and differences of the three generations of quarks (quark flavour) and leptons (lepton flavour).
Flavour physics also plays an important role in studying matter-antimatter asymmetry, which helps explain why the universe is made mostly of matter and not antimatter. By investigating the behaviour of particles and their antiparticles, physicists can learn more about the tiny differences in how these particles decay, which could hold the key to understanding why the universe evolved in its current form.
One of the key ingredients to start with a Universe that is balanced in its matter-antimatter content at the time of the big bang and it reaches a state of great imbalance, as we observe it today, is CP violation. However, the observed amount of CP is far from explaining the observed matter-antimatter imbalance, and new sources of CP violation, maybe beyond the standard model, are needed.
Overall, flavour physics is essential for advancing our understanding of the standard and searching for new physics beyond what is currently known.
I am involved in several research projects in the field of flavour physics at the Belle II experiment, and electron-positron collider located in Tsukuba, Japan, some 80 Km from Tokyo. The Belle II experiment is a modern detector that aims to uncover new physics beyond the standard model through the study of quarks and leptons flavour measurements, the search for rare and suppressed phenomena, and the search for dark sector particles.
