The Standard Model (SM) of elementary particle physics successfully describes all known particles and their interactions. Despite the many successes of SM, it alone does not offer answers to questions such as: what is dark matter, or why the masses and coupling constants of quarks and leptons differ by several orders of magnitude. The goal of most research in the field of elementary particle physics is therefore the search for new processes and particles (collectively addressed as new physics), which are an integral part of a more fundamental theory, within the framework of which we would be able to answer the open questions. As part of the doctoral program, we will search for such processes on a sample of data collected at the Belle II experiment, which operates at the electron-positron collider in Tsukuba, Japan. These are mostly studies of processes in the decays of B mesons (bound state of quark b and light quark), which are very rare in SM (they only take place via the so-called penguin diagrams) or even forbidden and are therefore particularly sensitive to possible contributions of new physics. The work will include the analysis of collected data using advanced machine learning methods (neural networks, etc.), improvement of existing algorithms for the reconstruction of raw data from the detector, and participation in the actual data collection (including regular visits to the KEK research center in Tsukuba). More at https://faime.ijs.si/
Doc. dr. Luka Šantelj
Luka Šantelj is a researcher at the Department of experimental particle physics, IJS. Since 2009, he is involved in the large international experiment Belle II, which takes place in Tsukuba, Japan. He also completed a three-year postdoctoral training there. His research work is focused on measurements of rare B and D meson decays, and the development of advanced particle identification methods. At Belle II, he leads the group for studies of hadron decays of B mesons and the group for the development of tools for monitoring the quality of collected data.
Research programme: Experimental Particle Physics
Training topic: Search for new physics at the Belle II experiment