The flavour anomalies are discrepancies observed between the experimental data and the Standard Model (SM) predictions and their detection forms the strongest evidence for the existence of New Physics (NP) in current collider data. These anomalies are revealed in quark-level transitions, such as the $b \rightarrow s~l^+l^-$ transitions, which are highly suppressed in the SM and can only...
The discovery of high-energy astrophysical neutrinos has the potential to open a new window to study violent phenomena in our Universe, such as gamma-ray bursts, and to pose stringent tests to fundamental interactions. However, due to their low interaction cross-section, few experiments in the world can detect these particles.
The Southern Wide-field Gamma-ray Observatory (SWGO) project aims...
Extensive air showers offer a unique opportunity to study high energy hadronic interactions, tune up-to-date hadronic interaction models and determine the origin and acceleration mechanisms of ultra-high-energy cosmic rays, through the analysis of shower observables and shower reconstruction. We recently showed that the muon number distribution in showers with low muonic content has a feature...
In the past two decades, there has been a growing interest and investment in the study of ultrafast optics in the mid-infrared (MIR 2-12 µm) region. Mainly because most gaseous and biomolecules have their fundamental vibrational absorptions within this range, leaving distinctive spectral fingerprints of key importance for industrial, medical, and scientific applications.
The first generation...
The discovery of the Higgs boson in 2012 was an important achievement in particle physics. This scalar particle is essential in the Standard Model to explain the mass of the other particles. However, there is nothing in the theory that restricts the scalar sector of the Standard Model to have only one particle. Therefore, theoretical physicists are trying to understand what are the...
Ultra-relativistic heavy ion collisions, such as those in the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) or the Relativistic Heavy-Ion Collider (RHIC), have unlocked an extensive scientific program. Namely, the production of Quark-Gluon Plasma (QGP) offers many opportunities, from the study of early universe dynamics, to the phase diagram of Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD), and the study of QCD in extreme...
Electron-positron pair production is one of the most important problems in extreme plasma physics. Thanks to the recent advances in laser technology, these can now be created in the lab using the most intense lasers in the world. If all other parameters are equal, more pairs are expected with a higher laser intensity. However, if the total energy of the laser pulse is fixed, there will be a...
Tokamak plasma disruptions are a threat in achieving a stable controlled nuclear fusion device, thus being very important to consider the development and interconnection between disruption alarm systems and mitigation control systems. In absence of a cohesive theoretical framework based on MHD theory that contains all possible activiy that can precede a disruption, several studies have been...
In the last decades, the fields of cosmology, theoretical astrophysics and particle physics have come across one of the most enduring problems in physics of modern times: the search for the origin and nature of dark matter particles. Numerous studies have compared and combined in a self-consistent way the most powerful cosmic probes: the cosmic microwave background, galaxy redshift surveys,...
With the increase of renewable energy generation, and their problems related to output instability, storage systems must be implemented in parallel to account for this effect. For this reason, a model to rank the various available options is developed for the several sectors of the energy storage market, as well as a methodologically similar model for the purpose of strategic energy public...
The past decade has witnessed the emergence of ultrashort laser systems in the mid-infrared range (2 − 10 µm). This has brought several new challenges to this field, beginning with the pulse determination. Indeed, to measure an event in time, a shorter one is needed to compare it with, but these ultrashort pulses are the shortest events ever created, measuring at most 100 fs. Pulse retrieval...
Almost every industry of the present day requires accurate solutions for metrology and positioning. There are several techniques that can be used, using different devices working under different physical principles. Each having their own strengths and weaknesses, they aim, however, towards the same goal: accurate and reliable positioning with high resolution. The suitability of each device...
One of the major challenges of quantum key distribution (QKD) is the limited distance at which the communicating parties (Alice and Bob) can be. To mitigate this effect, trusted nodes are established, where the key is reconstructed and resent to more distant locations. But even though these nodes are trusted, they are still open to certain types of attacks, namely to the so-called...
Why are there three families of quarks and leptons and the mass hierarchies and mixing matrices so different for these two types of particles? And why does the gauge sector have only a few parameters while the flavour sector has a much larger set of external parameters? These are still some unanswered questions by the Standard Model, the current model of particle physics. Their solution might...
The Higgs particle was predicted in 1964 and discovered at CERN on July 2012, earning Higgs and Englert the 2013 Physics Nobel Prize. This is a spin zero particle (scalar), necessary to give masses to the all other massive particles in the Standard Model of Electroweak interactions. But, there is no fundamental reason why there should be only one such scalar. In this project, one wishes to...
Parton Distribution Functions have been a fundamental part in the calculation of experimental quantities that involve hadrons. Current understanding comes from experimental fits to data and other techniques such as Lattice QCD. We propose an alternative way of calculating the Parton Distribution Functions directly from the theory via Light-Front Wave Functions, integrated directly from the...
