Stringent bounds on flavor-changing processes pose a major challenge to new physics at the TeV scale. In this talk, we will examine the role of flavor symmetries in providing protection from these bounds within the Standard Model Effective Field Theory (SMEFT), taking U(3)^5 and, through reduction of flavor groups, examine the interplay with SMEFT parameter space. We will then push this approach further, asking how far flavor universality can be relaxed while maintaining sufficient protection for TeV-scale new physics. This will lead us to Minimal Flavor Protection (MFP), a framework based on the minimal continuous flavor symmetry (SU(2)_q times U(1)_X). With a small set of symmetry-breaking spurions of comparable size, MFP reproduces the observed charged-fermion masses and mixings while suppressing dangerous flavor-changing neutral currents. We will discuss how this framework opens up richer patterns of flavor violation, the additional CP assumptions required by electric dipole moment bounds, and the resulting opportunities for complementary searches at flavor experiments and high-energy colliders.
https://indico.ijs.si/event/4070/