NPA Seminar: Kyle Leach, Colorado School of Mines, "A Tale of Two Symmetries: Examining the PMNS and CKM Matrices via Weak Nuclear Decay"
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. Just as the classic English novel lends its title well to the spirit of understanding symmetries in the standard model (SM), the opening words also concisely sum up the status of beyond standard model (BSM) physics searches through tests of the fundamental symmetric matrices over the past few decades. Despite the identical mathematical formalism that generates these matrices in the SM, empirically the level of observed mixing within these two are dramatically different.