CERN’s LHCb experiment takes precision physics to a new level

CERN's LHCb experiment takes precision physics to a new level. Geneva, 26 August 2011. Results to be presented by CERN ¹ 's LHCb experiment at the biennial Lepton-Photon conference in Mumbai, India on Saturday 27 August are becoming the most precise yet on particles called B mesons, which provide a way to investigate matter-antimatter asymmetry. The LHCb experiment studies this phenomenon by observing the way B mesons decay into other particles. The new results reinforce earlier measurements from LHCb presented at last month's European Physical Society conference in Grenoble, France, showing that the B meson decays so far measured by the collaboration are in full agreement with predictions from the Standard Model of particle physics, the theory physicists use to describe the behaviour of fundamental particles. "This result shows that we're now able to measure the finest details of the B meson system," said LHCb spokesperson Pierluigi Campana, "whi ch puts us right where we need to be to start finding cracks in the Standard Model, and explaining matter-antimatter asymmetry." Matter and antimatter are thought to have existed in equal amounts at the beginning of the universe, but as the universe expanded and cooled, an asymmetry developed between them, leaving a universe that appears to be composed entirely of matter. Heavy quarks provide a good place to investigate this phenomenon because the heavier the quark, the more ways it can decay, and all of these decays are described by the Standard Model.