Generalized Symmetries, Noninvertible Naturalness, Flavor Unification

by Seth Koren (CERN)

Thursday Oct 8, 2026, 2:00 PM → 4:00 PM Europe/Madrid

C7b/058 - Seminar (IFAE Main Building C7b)

 

Abstract: Generalized symmetries are present in theories of particle physics, and understanding their structure can give insight into these theories and ultraviolet completions thereof. I will give a gentle introduction to the concepts of higher-form symmetries and importantly to their breaking, and then motivate the construction and use of noninvertible chiral symmetries as a model-building strategy we call 'noninvertible naturalness'. I'll show some of my work which has identified such symmetries in certain flavorful Z' extensions of the Standard Model, and how this strategy then guided me to elegant, minimal short-distance theories of gauged non-Abelian flavor where instanton effects can resolve various important SM naturalness puzzles.