Overview

• The LHCb Collaboration’s paper in Nature on July 16 details the first direct measurement of CP symmetry breaking in Λb baryon decays.
• The measured asymmetry aligns with Standard Model predictions for three-quark particles and follows earlier CP violations seen only in meson decays.
• Baryons such as the Lambda_b particle constitute the bulk of ordinary matter, linking this result to the cosmic matter–antimatter imbalance.
• Researchers from institutions worldwide, including Spain’s IFIC, analyzed data from CERN’s Large Hadron Collider to achieve this milestone.
• Scientists say the breakthrough sets the stage for higher-precision experiments that could uncover physics beyond the current theoretical framework.