PSILOGO

Laboratory for Particle Physics (LTP)


LTP Colloquium

Electric Dipole Moments and the Search for new CP Violation

Thursday, May 12, 2016, 16:00
WHGA Auditorium

Jordy de Vries, NIKHEF

Abstract: Permanent electric dipole moments (EDMs) break parity and time-reversal symmetry and, by the CPT-theorem, CP-symmetry. If measured they are unambiguous signs of new physics, since CP-violation in the quark mixing matrix predict EDMs orders of magnitude away from current experimental limits. The Standard Model (SM) also contains the QCD vacuum angle whose size is strongly limited by EDM experiments. This smallness leaves room for CP-violation from physics beyond the SM which is expected to exist in order to explain the universal matter/antimatter asymmetry.

EDM experiments typically involve complicated systems such as hadrons, nuclei, atoms, or even molecules. I will discuss an effective field theory framework in which EDM measurements can be interpreted in terms of more fundamental concepts. As an example, I illustrate how EDM measurements could disentangle different models of new CP violation and how EDM searches set strong constraints on CP violation in the top-Higgs sector.