After 40 Years, CERN’s LHCb Sees a One-in-10-Billion Particle Decay

Some science to clear the head. Physicists on CERN’s LHCb experiment have found evidence for one of the rarest decays ever chased: a B_d particle (a beauty quark plus a down antiquark) turning into two muons. It’s expected about once in 10 billion decays, and people have been hunting it for over 40 years.

Why it matters

This is the first time a single experiment has gathered enough evidence for it. Rare decays like this can carry faint fingerprints of particles too heavy for the LHC to make directly. So far the result matches the Standard Model, which narrows down where new physics could be hiding.

My take

Forty years of patient work to see something one time in ten billion. I love it. The more precisely we look at creation, the more ordered it turns out to be.

God Bless, and May the Source Be with You!

References & Further Reading

• After 40 years, CERN finds evidence of a one-in-10-billion particle decay (ScienceDaily)
• LHCb finds evidence of one-in-ten-billion particle decay (CERN)