LHCb underground area (CERN - A. Pantelia)
The LHCb collaboration at CERN observed the first matter-antimatter asymmetry in the decays of the particle known as the B0s. It is only the fourth sub-atomic particle known to exhibit such behaviour. Matter and antimatter are thought to have existed in equal amounts at the beginning of the universe , but today the universe appears to be composed essentially of matter. By studying subtle differences in the behaviour of particle and antiparticles, experiments at the LHC are seeking to cast light on this dominance of matter over antimatter. Now the LHCb experiment has observed a preference for matter over antimatter known as CP-violation in the decay of neutral B0s particles. The results are based on the analysis of data collected by the experiment in 2011. "The discovery of the asymmetric behaviour in the B0S particle comes with a significance of more than 5 sigma - a result that was only possible thanks to the large amount of data provided by the LHC and to the LHCb detector's particle identification capabilities," says Pierluigi Campana, spokesperson of the LHCb collaboration [see video interview ].
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