LHCb

Search for New Physics at and Beyond the Energy Frontier

The LHCb experiment at CERN in Geneva is dedicated to the search for New Physics at the LHC. The experiment is looking for the effects of New Physics in "quantum loops" in the heavy quark sector, enabling it to search beyond the energy frontier.

LHCb is instrumented in the forward region and provides physicists with the best vertex resolution, particle identification and triggering of any of the LHC experiments. It is sensitive to enormously rare events and provides unique high precision measurements of processes sensitive to New Physics and is making precision tests of the Standard Model and QCD in this hitherto unexplored regime. Part of the region provides overlap with ATLAS and CMS, the rest is unique to LHCb.

Liverpool are leading the measurement of electroweak boson production in muon final states, studying the production of top quarks, and investigating the measurement of A_FB, the forward backward asymmetry of Z bosons. The properties of the decays of the W bosons are also measured and these are also used as senstive tests for lepton universality. We are also innovating, together with our colleagues in the theory department to use the heavy quark decays to set very general limits on all beyond the standard model processes.

The design and construction of an upgraded detector to replace the VELO is a current project at Liverpool. This will involve the use of pixel rather than strip sensors and Liverpool technology is expected to form the heart of the sensor devices.

 

Personnel:

Group Leader:

Tara Shears

Academic Staff:

Themis Bowcock

Francesco Dettori

Martin Gorbahn (Theory)

David Hutchcroft

Research Staff:

Gianluigi Casse

Stephen Farry

Karol Hennessy

Kurt Rinnert

Engineering and Computing Staff:

Rob Fay

Sam Powell

Tony Smith

Peter Sutcliffe

Ilya Tsurin

Technical Staff:

John Carroll

Peter Cooke

Mike Lockwood

Mark Whitley

Mike Wormald