High Energy Physics Seminar

As the heaviest SM lepton, lepton flavor violating (LFV) decays of the tau parallel the flavor transitions probed by neutrino oscillation experiments. Therefore, the era of precision neutrino physics will be complemented by advances in our understanding of charged-tau lepton physics. The future of tau physics has real potential to unveil the secrets of the lepton sector. In this talk, I will discuss a number of promising avenues for SM and BSM physics studies of the tau. I will highlight some avenues for model-building that motivate tau physics as a preferential target for BSM searches, and discuss three-body phase space as a probe for new LFV effective interactions. I will demonstrate how an understanding of SM tau interactions at the DUNE near detector can improve our understanding of the synergy between neutrino and charged-lepton physics. And finally, I will describe how in the presence of ultralight Dark Matter, a LFV decay of the tau can provide a natural probe for the wave-like nature of such a classical background.

The talk is in 469 Lauritsen.

Contact theoryinfo@caltech.edu for Zoom link.