The flavour of New Physics in the loops of hadronic beauty decays

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The Standard Model (SM) of Particle Physics, whilst incredibly successfully, is known not to provide anadequate description for various observed physical phenomena. Precision measurements in the flavoursector are an ideal laboratory to search for New Physics (NP) beyond the SM at very high energy scales.This proposal will make precise measurements of highly NP sensitive decay rate ratios and weak phases,which arise in beauty-quark to strange- or down-quark transitions, using data collected at the LargeHadron Collider beauty (LHCb) experiment.The weak phase under consideration, called phi-s, has a very small and precisely known value in the SMmaking its determination a prime avenue for exploration of NP. However, interpretation of the experimentalmeasurement, within the framework of the SM, is complicated by unknown polluting contributions. Thisissue is overcome in this proposal using a novel analysis technique, which simultaneously extracts theunknown contribution by exploiting flavour symmetries that are known to hold for the decays under study.This proposal will make the world's first precision measurement of phi-s using this analysis method.A family of seven inter-related decay modes of neutral B-mesons to hadrons, via vector-vector states, willbe investigated. Beyond extraction of the weak phase, phi-s, understanding of the complex amplitudestructure of these decays will provide insights into the role of New Physics in their decay dynamics. Thisproposal will make world's first and world's most precise measurements of various compelling decay rateparameters and phases which probe the fundamental nature of these processes.During the timeline of this proposal the available datasets will increase by a factor of forty and theproject will deliver cutting-edge developments in analysis techniques and software tools. The outcome isa step-change in the physics reach, which will permit these precision measurements to be made for thefirst time.