The LHCb detector was designed to examine particles called mesons, watching them decay through time after high-energy collisions of other fundamental particles.<\/p>\n
The LHCb Collaboration was looking at decays of particles called D-mesons, which can in turn decay into kaons and pions.<\/p>\n
LHCb, one of the six separate experiments at the Large Hadron Collider, is particularly suited for examining what is called "CP violation" – slight differences in behaviour if a given particle is swapped for its antimatter counterpart.<\/p>\n
Our best understanding of physics so far, called the Standard Model, suggests that the complicated cascades of decay of matter particles into other particles should be very nearly the same – within less than 0.1% – as a similar chain of antimatter decays.<\/p>\n
Other experiments, notably at the Fermi National Accelerator facility in the US, have found a CP violation of about 0.1%, but with an uncertainty in their measurement that meant the result might just fit within the Standard Model.<\/p>\n
But the LHCb team is reporting a difference of about 0.8% – a significant difference that, if true, could herald the first "new physics" to be found at the LHC.<\/p>\n
"Our result is more significant firstly because it comes out with a [greater difference] and secondly because our precision is improved – somewhat more precise than all of the previous results put together," Dr Charles told BBC News.<\/p>\n
Spotting such a difference in the behaviour of matter and antimatter particles may also finally help explain why our Universe is overwhelmingly made of matter.<\/p>\n
"Certainly this kind of effect, a new source of CP violation, could be a manifestation of the physics which drives the matter – antimatter asymmetry," Dr Charles explained.<\/p>\n
However, he stressed there are "many steps in the chain" between confirming the collaboration’s experimental result, and resolving the theory to accommodate it.<\/p>\n
"This result is a hint of something interesting and if it bears out, it will mean that, at a minimum, our current theoretical understanding needs improving," Dr Charles said.<\/p>\n
"It’s exactly the sort of thing for which the LHC was originally built."<\/p>\n