Theory Overview of Testing Fundamental Symmetries

Abstract

I review first some theoretical motivations for violation of Lorentz and/or CPT Invariance. Although the latter symmetries may be violated in a quantum gravity setting, nevertheless there are situations in which these violations are due to a given classical background geometry that may characterised early epochs of our Universe, and in fact be responsible for the observed dominance of matter over antimatter in the Universe. In this way I estimate some of the coefficients of the Standard Model Extension (SME), which is a framework for a field theoretic study of such a breakdown of fundamental symmetries. Then I describe briefly some tests of these symmetries, giving emphasis in low-energy antiproton physics and electric dipole moment measurements, of interest to this conference. I also mention the rôle of entangled states of neutral mesons in providing independent measurements of T(ime reversal) and CP Violation, thus providing independent tests of CPT symmetry, as well as novel ("smoking-gun" type) tests of decoherence-induced CPT violation, which may characterise some models of quantum gravity.