Test of lepton flavour universality at the NA62 experiment at CERN

Lepton Flavour Universality (LFU) is a pillar of the Standard Model (SM) that implies equal interaction strength for particles from different lepton families, as the electron and the muon. Several recent experimental results in particle physics seem to suggest possible LFU violation, which is predicted by many Beyond the Standard Model (BSM) scenarios.

Kaons, the lightest particles containing the "strange" quark, provide an outstanding way of searching for BSM physics via precise measurements. Experimental studies of decays of strange and light quarks is a very active field of research, and significant progress is expected over the next decade.

The NA62 experiment at CERN, a multi-purpose experiment investigating rare kaon decays, is the flagship of the European kaon physics programme and a leader in this field worldwide. NA62 has been operational since 2016 and will continue to collect data at least until 2025. Due to a uniquely intense kaon beam provided by the CERN accelerator complex and a range of state-of-the-art detectors, a variety of stringent SM tests can be performed within the NA62 experiment.

In particular, the analysis of leptonic kaon decays within NA62 could lead to the most-precise LFU test in the world.

Jamimah will join the NA62 collaboration and will contribute to the LFU research with the NA62 data. An extension of the LFU analysis to constrain several BSM scenarios will be performed. Joining a medium-size international collaboration, Jamimah will have the opportunity to play a leading role on a hot topic in particle physics, while developing key expertise on hardware, software, and data analysis.

Jamimah will also spend some months on-site at CERN, acting as a detector expert and doing data-taking shifts.