Observation of Rare Particles May Shed Light on Why the Universe Has More Matter Than Antimatter

Shortly after experiments on the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at the CERN laboratory near Geneva, Switzerland began yielding scientific data last fall, a group of scientists led by a Syracuse University physicist became the first to observe the decays of a rare particle that was present right after the Big Bang. By studying this particle, scientists hope to solve the mystery of why the universe evolved with more matter than antimatter.

Led by Sheldon Stone, a physicist in SU's College of Arts and Sciences, the scientists observed the decay of a special type of B meson, which are created when protons traveling at nearly the speed of light smash into each other. The work is part of two studies published in the March 28 issue of Physics Letters B. Stone leads SU's high-energy physics group, which is part of a larger group of scientists (the LHCb collaboration) that run an experiment at CERN. The National Science Foundation (NSF) funds Stone's research group.