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
Technical Staff:
John Carroll
Mike Lockwood
Mark Whitley