High Energy Physics Seminar

The behavior of fundamental particles, such as quarks and neutrinos, is key to understanding the Standard Model of particle physics. Their mixing patterns are described by two mathematicalobjects: the Cabibbo-Kobayashi-Maskawa (CKM) matrix for quarks and the Pontecorvo-Maki-Nakagawa-Sakata (PMNS) matrix for neutrinos. In this talk, I will explain how recent advances in theory and experiments are helping to improve the precision of these matrices.For quarks, I will discuss how precise measurements of the neutron lifetime allow us to determine the largest CKM matrix element, Vud. I will present a modern theoretical framework that accounts for subtle effects, like radiative corrections, in low-energy processes with nucleons. These corrections are essential for achieving high precision in extracting Vud.For neutrinos, future experiments such as Hyper-Kamiokande in Japan and LBNF/DUNE in the USA aim to answer fundamental questions, such as whether neutrinos preserve charge-parity (CP) violation and the ordering of their masses. These experiments depend on accurate predictions of how neutrinos interact with matter. I will review recent theoretical progress on radiative corrections, the structure of hadrons, and neutrino-nucleus interactions, and discuss their role in determining the elements of the PMNS matrix.