CERN 
The LHC 
ATLAS 
ALICE 
CMS 
LHCB
LHCb
on the tracks of missing antimatter
LHCb will seek to understand why our Universe seems to be composed entirely of matter and not antimatter.
Although antimatter is the mirror form of matter, the latter prevails over it in the Universe. To explain this highly puzzling imbalance, theories predict that there is a minute difference that can be measured in an experiment.
The LHCb has been designed to study the very slight asymmetry between matter and antimatter by analysing the thousands of pairs of beauty and anti-beauty quarks. These particles existed in large numbers immediately after the Big Bang and the energies available at the LHC will allow them to be recreated and studied.
The experiment measures 21 m long and 10 m high and weighs 5600 tonnes. The LHCb magnet consists of two coils, each weighing 27 tonnes and mounted on a 1450 tonne steel support. The experiment is based at Point 8 of the LHC in Ferney-Voltaire, France. The LHCb collaboration comprises 650 scientists of 13 different nationalities from a total of 48 institutes.