Sonderkolloquium: The March of the Ents

The march is on for tree-level flavour-changing decays (b → c(u)lν). As the “beta decays” of beauty hadrons, these processes should serve as shining beacons for the Standard Model - our best theory of particle physics. Yet, instead of clarity, they have brought puzzles. Some tensions - persisting for years at the level of 4σ - remain unresolved; others have only recently emerged. Taken together, they suggest that something essential might be missing from our current understanding. If confirmed, some of these anomalies could even point to a new fundamental force of nature.

In this talk, I’ll take you on a journey through these decays, highlighting where the puzzles lie and why they matter. I’ll show how my work at LHCb - using one of the world’s largest beauty hadron datasets - is targeting not only the most precise, but also first-of-their-kind measurements. These measurements are crucial to either confirming or resolving the observed anomalies.

But precision comes at a price. These decays pose unique experimental challenges, requiring innovative solutions. Meeting these challenges not only advances this specific research program, but also strengthens LHCb’s broader goals in heavy-flavour physics as we prepare for the High-Luminosity LHC era.

Like the Ents of Middle-earth in Tolkien’s tale, progress may be slow - but once in motion, they could reshape the landscape of particle physics as we know it.

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