Welcome to the LHCb experiment
Fourteen billion years ago, the Universe began with a bang. Crammed within an infinitely small space, energy coalesced to form equal quantities of matter and antimatter.
But as the Universe cooled and expanded, its composition changed. Just one second after the Big Bang, antimatter had all but disappeared, leaving matter to form everything that we see around us – from the stars and galaxies, to the Earth and all life that it supports.
LHCb is an experiment set up to explore what happened after the Big Bang that allowed matter to survive and build the Universe we inhabit today.
Take the LHCb Virtual Tour QuickTime / Flash
News
Below you may find interesting computer reconstructed events observed with the LHCb detector during the LHC restart period in November and December 2009. Click on picture to see it in higher resolution version.
Protons have ended to circulate at LHC on December 16th. LHC will start again during the second half Febuary 2010 and will operate for 18-24 months. More news will appear here.
1.2 TeV collisions at LHCb
14.12.09
On December 14th 1.2 TeV proton beams have collided at LHCb during LHC machine studies. Many LHCb subdetectors, except of sensitive silicon detectors, recorded the world's highest energy pp collisions. Other events can be found here.
proton interactions with gas
12.12.09
Position of proton interactions inside the vertex detector with residualal gas are shown in blue or red, proton-proton interatioin in green (more details).
K0 reconstruction
12.12.09
So called "stange particles" are produced in the proton-proton collisions and decay inside LHCb detector into two other particles reconstructed as red tracks, (more details).
High multiplicity events
12.12.09
A high multiplicity event with three muon tracks (green) recorded on December 12th. Other events can be found here.
More proton-proton collisions
8.12.09
On December 8th many long tracks were reconstructed using the detectors along the whole length of the LHCb. Collision vertex is clearly observed (bottom left). The tracks are curved in the magnetic field allowing measurement of the track momentum (top left). Other events can be found here.
RICH rings
6.12.09
LHCb RICH detectors are used to identify particles. The circles show possible position of measured points for different kinds of particles traversing the detector. The measured points clearly choose one possibility for every circle and in this way allow to identify particles.
First proton-proton collisions
23.11.09
A proton-proton collision candidate event. On November 23 protons from two beams circulated at LHC and have collided at LHCb.
LHC news video youTube
First proton-proton collisions
23.11.09
Tracks originate from the expected region inside LHCb Vertex Locator detector VELO.
First proton-proton collisions
23.11.09
Another proton-proton collision candidate event.
First proton-proton collisions
23.11.09
Annimation (click on picture): pp collisions and proton beam gas collisions recorded on Nov. 23, 2009. Other reconstructed events can be found here.
First reconstructed pi0's
23.11.09
pi0 is the short lived particle decaying into two photons which were measured in the electromagnetic calorimeter ECAL. The plot above shows the nearly perfectly reconstructed pi0 mass.
First proton interactions
22.11.09
... reconstructed Vertex Locator VELO track. Other reconstructed events can be found here.
First proton interactions
22.11.09
... event reconstructed later (offline reconstruction). Particularly interesting is the blue track recorded in the Vertex Locator VELO and in the tracking chambers after the magnet.
First proton interactions
21.11.09
... not yet proton-proton interaction but interactions of the protons with residual gas inside LHC ring. Tracks reconstructed tracks during data taking.
A splash from the LHC beam
21.11.09
LHC has restarted on November 21st. Two LHC beams have made a full turn of the LHC. Afterwards, after synchronization with the LHC accelerating system (RF capture in technical language), the beams made few hundred turns. During LHC operation LHCb has recoded splash events. The movie (click on picture) shows what LHCb detector has recorded every 25ns (1/(40 000 000) s) for a particular splash event; see individual events here.
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