**TL;DR**: *Tree-level* flavour changing neutral currents are not allowed in the Standard Model. There could be, if you invent another particle or two (and indeed there are New Physics proposals about this). <br> But the Standard model *does* allow for flavour changing neutral currents with higher order diagrams, like *box* or *penguin* diagrams. **More in depth** A "flavour changing current" is a process featuring the violation of quark flavour conservation. When mediated by a *neutral* particle such as the $Z^0$ boson (or a photon), they do not entail a net charge exchange and are hence called "flavour changing *neutral* currents". > if a top quark emits a Z boson or a Higgs boson At tree level the $Z^0$ boson *cannot* allow flavour mixing. This is because the $Z^0$ boson has no charge and can hence only couple quarks of the same charge: so both $i$ and $j$ have to be $\in (u, c, t)$ or $\in (d, s, b)^\dagger$. You can show, then, the matrix element for the tree level interaction goes as : $$ \mathcal{M} \quad \propto \quad g_W \cdot(u, c, t) \left (\begin{array}{c} \bar u \\ \bar c \\ \bar t \end{array} \right ) \quad \propto \quad u\bar u + c \bar c + d \bar d,$$ i.e. no cross-generational coupling and hence no flavour mixing. If the process were mediated by a $W^{\pm}$ boson, on the other hand, you'd have sometime like: $$ \mathcal{M} \quad \propto \quad \bar u\bar V_{ud} d + \bar u V_{us} s + ...,$$ i.e. cross-generational coupling and hence flavour mixing. <br> $V$ is the [CKM][1] matrix. Hence, the lowest order diagrams for Flavour Changing Neutral Currents in the Standard Model are *box* or *penguin* diagrams: [![enter image description here][2]][2] The *penguin diagram* gets his name because: [![enter image description here][3]][3] -------------- $\dagger$: There are some subtleties about the mass eigenstates $(d,s,b)$ not being the same eigenstates of the weak force $(d',s',b')$. The two bases are related by the CKM matrix. I ignore all of this, just to provide a qualitative picture. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cabibbo%E2%80%93Kobayashi%E2%80%93Maskawa_matrix#CKM_matrix [2]: https://i.sstatic.net/d8xCs.png [3]: https://i.sstatic.net/PfXw2.png