U.S.-Japan Seminar: New Initiatives in Lepton Flavor Violation Studies

University Of California-Irvine, Irvine CA

Investigators

Abstract

9979794 Molzon This award supports the participation of American scientists in a U.S.-Japan seminar on New Initiatives in Lepton Flavor Violation Studies, to be held in Hawaii from October 30 to November 3, 2000. The co-organizers are Professors William Molzon at the University of California, Irvine and Professor Yoshitaka Kuno at the High Energy Accelerator Research Organization (KEK) in Tsukuba, Japan. A fundamental question in particle physics is why there are three families of quarks and leptons. Central to this question is whether muon and electron numbers are conserved. Theoretical and experimental research in this field is extremely active mainly in the U.S., Europe and Japan. Theoretical studies of supersymmetric grand unified models indicate that muon number violation could well be discovered with these new experiments. The meeting will bring together the leading experimental, theoretical and accelerator physicists from this field. They will study both the power of different searches for muon number violation in a theoretical framework and the technical feasibility of experiments and will be considering near term efforts in the U.S. and longer-term prospects in Japan. Improved cooperative interactions between experimental and theoretical physicists are likely to evolve from the meeting. The meetings should excite the interest of theorists, who will get a better idea of the potential for and difficulties with improved experimental sensitivity. The Experimentalists should obtain a better appreciation for the theoretical impact of different possible experimental searches. The Seminar organizers have made a special effort to involve younger researchers as both participants and observers. The exchange of ideas and data with Japanese experts in this field will enable U.S. participants to advance their own work, and will set the stage for future collaborative projects. Dissemination of information from the meeting will be via the WWW. An appropriate address will be set up on http:/meco.ps.uci.edu. Published proceedings may also be available on CDROM from APS or the World University Pre