No Arabic abstract
Charged-lepton flavour-violating (cLFV) processes offer deep probes for new physics with discovery sensitivity to a broad array of new physics models - SUSY, Higgs Doublets, Extra Dimensions, and, particularly, models explaining the neutrino mass hierarchy and the matter-antimatter asymmetry of the universe via leptogenesis. The most sensitive probes of cLFV utilize high-intensity muon beams to search for $mu rightarrow e$ transitions. We summarize the status of muon-cLFV experiments currently under construction at PSI, Fermilab, and J-PARC. These experiments offer sensitivity to effective new physics mass scales approaching O($10^4$) TeV/c$^2$. Further improvements are possible and next-generation experiments, using upgraded accelerator facilities at PSI, Fermilab, and J-PARC, could begin data taking within the next decade. In the case of discoveries at the LHC, they could distinguish among alternative models; even in the absence of direct discoveries, they could establish new physics. These experiments both complement and extend the searches at the LHC.
The search for charged lepton flavour violation (CLFV) has enormous discovery potential in probing new physics Beyond the Standard Model (BSM). Among the muonic CLFV processes, $mu to e$ conversion is one of the most important processes, having several advantages compared to other such processes. We describe the COMET experiment, which is searching for $mu to e$ conversion in a muonic atom at the J-PARC proton accelerator laboratory in Japan. The COMET experiment has taken a staged approach; the first stage, COMET Phase-I, is currently under construction at J-PARC, and is aiming at a factor 100 improvement over the current limit. The second stage, COMET Phase-II is seeking another 100 improvement (a total of 10,000), allowing a single event sensitivity (SES) of $2.6 times 10^{-17}$ with $2times 10^{7}$ seconds of data-taking. Further improvements by one order of magnitude, which arise from refinements to the experimental design and operation, are being considered whilst staying within the originally-assumed beam power and beam time. Such a sensitivity could be translated into probing many new physics constructions up to $mathcal{O}(10^{4})$ TeV energy scales, which would go far beyond the level that can be reached directly by collider experiments. The search for CLFV $mu to e$ conversion is thus highly complementary to BSM searches at the LHC.
The Heavy Flavor Averaging Group provides with this document input to the European Strategy for Particle Physics. Research in heavy-flavor physics is an essential component of the particle-physics program, both within and beyond the Standard Model. To fully realize the potential of the field, we believe the strategy should include strong support for the ongoing experimental and theoretical heavy-flavor research, future upgrades of existing facilities, and significant heavy-flavor capabilities at future colliders, including dedicated experiments.
A group of Early-Career Researchers (ECRs) has been given a mandate from the European Committee for Future Accelerators (ECFA) to debate the topics of the current European Strategy Update (ESU) for Particle Physics and to summarise the outcome in a brief document [1]. A full-day debate with 180 delegates was held at CERN, followed by a survey collecting quantitative input. During the debate, the ECRs discussed future colliders in terms of the physics prospects, their implications for accelerator and detector technology as well as computing and software. The discussion was organised into several topic areas. From these areas two common themes were particularly highlighted by the ECRs: sociological and human aspects; and issues of the environmental impact and sustainability of our research.
This document was prepared as part of the briefing material for the Workshop of the CERN Council Strategy Group, held in DESY Zeuthen from 2nd to 6th May 2006. It gives an overview of the physics issues and of the technological challenges that will shape the future of the field, and incorporates material presented and discussed during the Symposium on the European Strategy for Particle Physics, held in Orsay from 30th January to 2nd February 2006, reflecting the various opinions of the European community as recorded in written submissions to the Strategy Group and in the discussions at the Symposium.
In planning for the Phase II upgrades of CMS and ATLAS major considerations are: 1)being able to deal with degradation of tracking and calorimetry up to the radiation doses to be expected with an integrated luminosity of 3000 $fb^{-1}$ and 2)maintaining physics performance at a pileup level of ~140. Here I report on work started within the context of the CMS Forward Calorimetry Task Force and continuing in an expanded CERN RD52 R$&$D program integrating timing (i.e. measuring the time-of-arrival of physics objects) as a potential tool for pileup mitigation and ideas for Forward Calorimetry. For the past 4 years our group has focused on precision timing at the level of 10-20 picoseconds in an environment with rates of $~10^6-10^7$ Hz/$cm^2 $ as is appropriate for the future running of the LHC (HL-LHC era). A time resolution of 10-20 picoseconds is one of the few clear criteria for pileup mitigation at the LHC, since the interaction time of a bunch crossing has an rms of 170 picosec. While work on charged particle timing in other contexts (i.e. ALICE R$&$D) is starting to approach this precision, there have been essentially no technologies that can sustain performance at these rates. I will present results on a tracker we developed within the DOE Advanced Detector R$&$D program which is now meeting these requirements. I will also review some results from Calorimeter Projects developed within our group (PHENIX EMCAL and ATLAS ZDC) which achieved calorimeter timing precision< 100 picoseconds.