RECEPT · Real-time precision tests of lepton universality

The Standard Model (SM) of Particle Physics is the most accurate available description of nature atmicroscopic scales, yet it is in fundamental contradiction with cosmological observations and models whichdescribe the macroscopic universe. For this reason, it is postulated that the SM is incomplete, andthat additional particles and/or forces are needed in order to describe both microscopic and macroscopic realityin a coherent and self-consistent manner. If such additional New Physics does exist, precision measurementsof the ways in which SM particles transform into each other should simultaneously disagree with certain SM predictions,and agree with the given New Physics model.Within this project, I will build a team of researchers dedicated to measuring one of the SM's mostprecise predictions, lepton universality (LU), with unprecedented experimental precision using the LHCb detector at theLarge Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN. In the current run, the LHC will deliver proton-proton collisionsto LHCb until the end of 2018, allowing my team to make the world's most precise measurements of LUin the decays of beauty hadrons. Subsequently, the LHC will shut down for two years, and during this time theLHCb detector will be upgraded to allow it to collect five times more data per calendar year. This upgrade will allow my team to make the world's most precise measurements of LU in strange decays with data taken in 2021, significantlyextending LHCb's physics programme.To make these measurements possible and take full advantage of the LHCb upgrade, my team will also optimizethe reconstruction of the upgraded LHCb detector, making it possible to fully reconstruct and analyze the data produced in the detector in real-time. This approach, completely novel in High Energy Physics, will not only improve the sensitivity to LU in strange decays by up to an order of magnitude, but greatly expand the general physics programme of the upgraded LHCb detector.