Conveners
Searching for New Physics with the Standard Model Effective Field Theory: Searching for New Physics with the Standard Model Effective Field Theory
- James Matthew Inglis (Queen Mary)
Description
The Standard Model has been very reliable and successful, explaining the vast majority of observed physical phenomena. However, despite its successes, the Standard Model is not without its shortcomings and is known to be incomplete. Whilst there are many plausible theories extending the Standard Model and resolving its problems, it is not clear which theory is the true description of Nature. It is of interest to search for the effects of new physics in a model-independent yet quantifiable manner, and the Standard Model Effective Field Theory (SMEFT) offers an attractive way of achieving this.
This talk will provide an introduction to the SMEFT, motivating its construction and demonstrating its strengths as a tool for probing new physics. It will explore how experimental collider data can be used to constrain the SMEFT, with a particular focus on a case study involving the SMEFT interpretation of an ATLAS measurement of the charged-current Drell–Yan process (arXiv:2502.21088). Finally, the combination of multiple collider measurements in a so-called global SMEFT fit will be discussed, and results from the world's largest SMEFT fit (arXiv:2604.21670) will be presented.