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LHCb experiment magnets

LHCb

Large Hadron Collider beauty

The LHCb experiment will help us to understand why we live in a Universe that appears to be composed almost entirely of matter, but no antimatter.

It specialises in investigating the slight differences between matter and antimatter by studying a type of particle called the 'beauty quark', or 'b quark'.

Instead of surrounding the entire collision point with an enclosed detector, the LHCb experiment uses a series of sub-detectors to detect mainly forward particles. The first sub-detector is mounted close to the collision point, while the next ones stand one behind the other, over a length of 20 m.

An abundance of different types of quark will be created by the LHC before they decay quickly into other forms. To catch the b-quarks, LHCb has developed sophisticated movable tracking detectors close to the path of the beams circling in the LHC.

The LHCb collaboration has 650 scientists from 48 institutes in 13 countries (April 2006).

LHCb setup

LHCb detector

  • Size: 21m long, 10m high and 13m wide
  • Weight: 5600 tonnes
  • Design: forward spectrometer with planar detectors
  • Location: Ferney-Voltaire, France.

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