Beauty and B mesons at LHCb detector

The LHCb detector's magnet and surrounding iron yoke.

Each morning when you look in the bathroom mirror you expect to see an identical reflection of yourself. However, imagine that one morning your mirror-twin didn't pick up the toothbrush in the same way that you did.

For years, physicists believed that matter particles and their antimatter twins should behave identically, as if they were mirror images. Then, in 1964, scientists observed a certain neutral kaon decay process that defied those predictions. The phenomenon, called "CP violation," has since been an area of intense study, particularly because it may provide insight into the mysterious lack of antimatter in the universe.

Now, an international team of scientists at CERN plans to explore CP violation in a new experiment called "Large Hadron Collider beauty," or LHCb for short.

LHCb spokesperson Tatsuya Nakada said, "We [the collaboration scientists] hope to discover physics beyond the Standard Model by studying rare phenomena such as CP violation and rare decays of bottom, down, and strange quark mesons."

Current theory holds that matter and antimatter existed in equal amounts just after the Big Bang and therefore should have eventually annihilated into a sea of photons. The preponderance of matter in the universe today clearly demonstrates that this didn't happen, so something must have tipped the balance. While current particle theory doesn't completely account for the disparity, LHCb may be able to provide more insight.

The 21-meter-long LHCb detector is constructed in layers and allows for the study of particles emitted in the forward direction. By analyzing the data collected, LHCb physicists will measure important CP violation properties and perhaps even discover new subatomic mechanisms for the matter/antimatter imbalance, such as those proposed by supersymmetric theories.

Nakada has high expectations for the experiment. "While the Standard Model cannot generate enough asymmetry between the matter and antimatter to account for the amount of matter in the universe, LHCb may detect new physics that could explain the discrepancy," he said.

-- J. Bryan Lowder

Summer of learning: what's with all these grid schools?

Grid summer schools are a catalyst for the creation of long-lasting international and inter-disciplinary networks. This image was taken at the Biomed GRID School, held 14-19 May 2007, in Varenna, Italy. Image courtesy of David Fergusson

It's that time of year again: the snow melts, the skies turn blue, and grid summer schools appear across the planet.

David Fergusson is something of an old hand when it comes to grid education: he has organised and attended numerous training events, workshops and summer schools; managed the NA3 Training Activity during EGEE I; and is currently the deputy director for Training Outreach and Education at the National e-Science Centre, Edinburgh, UK, as well as the Manager of ICEAGE, a project dedicated to advanced grid education events. Fergusson found time between summer schools to chat with EGEE's Alison McCall.

Alison McCall: Why hold grid summer schools?

David Fergusson: Grid summer schools bring together experts from a wide variety of technologies and sciences, people who could not otherwise get together. For instance, a single university could not provide experts from all the middleware technologies, but we have such experts teaching at the summer schools. For example, at past schools we've had Ian Foster, Satoshi Matsuoka, Miron Livny, Erwin Laure and Malcolm Atkinson, all under one roof.

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-- Alison McCall, EGEE

Pierre Auger Press Release
July 3, 2007

Pierre Auger Observatory shares cosmic-ray data with public, students

MALARGÜE, Argentina -- Scientists of the Pierre Auger Collaboration will begin today (July 3) the public release of one percent of the cosmic-ray events recorded by the Pierre Auger Observatory in Argentina. New cosmic-ray data-about 70 events per day-will be posted on a daily basis. The data and their visualizations are available at www.auger.org and www.auger.org.ar.

The international Pierre Auger Collaboration, which includes scientists from 17 countries, explores the origins of extremely rare ultra-high-energy cosmic rays -- particles from space that hit Earth, some with energies 100 million times higher than those made by the world's highest-energy particle accelerator, the Tevatron at Fermilab. These are the highest-energy particles ever recorded in nature. When such a particle hits the atmosphere it creates an air shower that can contain 200 billion particles by the time it reaches the ground.

The one-percent release is part of the worldwide Pierre Auger education and outreach program. It will allow teachers to expose students to real scientific data and the breathtaking processes that take place in the cosmos, hurling charged particles toward Earth. The two Web sites provide the data both as graphical displays and in tabular form. For each cosmic-ray air shower, the Web sites show the energy and direction of the incoming cosmic-ray particle. The public data provides information on cosmic-rays with extremely high energy, up to 5 x 10^19 electron volts (eV).

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