Rare Kaon Physics

Kaon physics has been one of the key building blocks of the Standard Model (SM) and continues to play a fundamental role complementary to the direct searches for New Physics at the LHC. The ultra-rare decays K+ -> pi+ nu nu and KL -> pi0 nu nu are among the most sensitive probes of physics beyond the SM and are capable of probing mass-scales up to 100 TeV. The detection of these decay modes is challenging because the branching ratios are predicted by the SM to be of order $10^{-10}$. The NA62 experiment at the CERN SPS has been designed to provide better than a  10% precision measurement of the branching fraction of the K+ > pi+ nu nu decay and took data for the first time during a 2-month commissioning run in November-December 2014. This seminar will focus on an overview of the new generation of kaon experiments and, in particular, of the NA62 experiment at the CERN SPS with a first look at the 2014 data.