University of Pennsylvania
Department of Physics and Astronomy
High Energy Physics Seminar
Joao Guimaraes da Costa


Abstract for:
b' Quark: The Next Generation


The Standard Model (SM) with three generations of quarks and leptons is in excellent agreement with all experimental data available today. However, the model has several unsolved mysteries, among others it does not explain the fermion family replication. This seminar will review the current experimental constraints on the existence of an extra charge -1/3 quark (b'). A report on the latest search for pair production of b' quarks using the CDF data will be presented. The quarks are assumed to decay via the flavor-changing neutral current process b'-->bZ, which can be the dominant b' decay mode for a wide range of b' masses. The results of this search extend the exclusion region for FCNC decays of a b' quark by more than a factor of 2.