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Beauty quarks behaving badly

08 July 2021 12:00 - 12:30

This event is part of a series of lightning lectures for the Royal Society’s 2021 Summer Science digital showcase.

It’s no secret that the universe is a vast space, made up of various fundamental particles, all of which help us to understand what the universe is, how it works and how it can change over time.

The Standard Model, a highly reliable, well-tested description of fundamental particles and their interactions, predicts that particles known as beauty quarks should decay in the final states involving either muons or electrons at equal rates.  

However, new research suggests this may not be happening and the reason why remains a mystery. 

Leading physicist, Dr Mitesh Patel joins us to explain the puzzling behaviour of the beauty quark and how these findings could point to the existence of new particles and forces of nature not yet known to science.

Speaker

  • Dr Mitesh Patel, Reader in Particle Physics, Imperial College London

Watching this event online