The University of Warwick joined the LHCb collaboration in November 2008. We receive, or have received, funding from a number of external sources including:

A list of all the publications we have worked on is available under Physics Analysis.

Latest news

• 23 March 2021: LHCb releases 3.1σ evidence for lepton universality violation in B → Kl+l− decays, arXiv:2103.11769; see this great video for a general explanation of this result
• 15 January 2021: "A simple method to determine curvature biases in track reconstruction in hadron collider experiments" available as arXiv:2101.05675; update 22 March 2021: published as EPJ C81 (2021) 251
• 18 December 2020: Opening for a PDRA position with our Monash colleagues in MWAPP. Deadline for applications 10 February 2021
• 11 December 2020: Ed Millard successfully defended his Ph.D. thesis
• 19 November 2020: "Observation of a new excited D_s⁺ meson in B⁰ → D⁺D⁻K⁺π⁻ decays" available as arXiv:2011.09112; update 26 March 2021 published as PRL 126 (2021) 122002
• 29 October 2020: Opening for a research fellow to work on the SPEAR project within the Warwick LHCb group advertised. Deadline for applications 29 November
• 23 October 2020: "Measurement of the relative branching fractions of B⁺→h⁺h^′+h^′− decays" available as arXiv:2010.11802. Update 18 December 2020: published as PR D102 (2020) 112010
• 14 September 2020: "Angular analysis of B_s → f₂'(1525)(→K⁺K⁻)μ⁺μ⁻ decays as a probe to lepton flavor universality violation" available as
• arXiv:2009.06213

• 11 August 2020: Possible discovery of first open-flavour tetraquark announced in CERN seminar. See also LHCb news, LHCb UK news, Physics World article, Physics World podcast, CERN news, ... Update 2 September 2020: preprints available as arXiv:2009.00025 (submitted to PRL) and arXiv:2009.00026 (submitted to PRD). Update 4 December: published as PRL 125 (2020) 242001 and PR D102 (2020) 112003.

• 5 August 2020: Opening for a research fellow to work within the Monash Warwick Alliance in Particle Physics as part of the Warwick LHCb group advertised. Deadline for applications 2 September.

• 11 June 2020: Oliver Lupton awarded LHCb Early Career Scientist Award 2020, "For his excellent contributions to the design and implementation of the real-time processing software for the LHCb Upgrade." See the news item in the CERN bulletin.

• 23 April 2020: "Measurement of the Λ^{^0}_b→ J/ψΛ angular distribution and the Λ^{^0}_b polarisation in pp collisions" available as arXiv:2004.10563. Update 25 June 2020: published as JHEP 06 (2020) 110.
• 10 March 2020: "Measurement of CP-averaged observables in the B⁰→K*⁰μ⁺μ⁻ decay" available as arXiv:2003.04831. See also LHCb UK news item. Update 2 July 2020: published as PRL 125 (2020) 011802
• 26 February 2020: Two openings for research fellows to work on LHCb in the University of Warwick group advertised. Deadline for applications 26 March
• 24 February 2020: Announcement of Monash Warwick Alliance investment into a challenge-led initiative in Particle Physics. See also the University press release
• 20 December 2019: revised version of "A study of the sensitivity to CKM angle γ under simultaneous determination from multiple B meson decay modes" available as arXiv:1909.00600
• 13 December 2019: "Bayesian analysis of b → sμ⁺μ⁻ Wilson coefficients using the full angular distribution of Λ_b → Λ(→pπ⁻)μ⁺μ⁻ decays" available as arXiv:1912.05811. Update 19 February 2020: published as Phys.Rev. D101 (2020) 035023
• 10 December 2019: Announcement of ERC consolidator grant award to Mika Vesterinen. See also Warwick press release.
• 23 October 2019: Cayo Costa Sobral successfully defended his Ph.D. thesis
• 12 September 2019: "Observation of several sources of CP violation in B+→π+π+π− decays" and "Amplitude analysis of the B+→π+π+π− decay" available as arXiv:1909.05211 and arXiv:1909.05212, respectively. Featured as a Warwick Physics Research Nugget. Update 21 January 2020: published as Phys. Rev. Lett. 124 (2020) 031801 and Phys. Rev. D 101 (2020) 012006. Also featured as a Viewpoint in Physics
• 24 July 2019: "Simultaneously determining the W+- boson mass and pT spectrum" available as arXiv:1907.09958

The Group

People Tim Gershon (Professor) Tom Blake (Royal Socity University Research Fellow) Matt Kenzie (STFC Ernest Rutherford Fellow) Michal Kreps (Associate Professor) Mika Vesterinen (STFC Ernest Rutherford Fellow) John Back (Senior Research Fellow) Tom Latham (Senior Research Fellow) Fernando Abudinén (Research Fellow) Luis Miguel Garcia Martin (Research Fellow) Miguel Ramos Pernas (Research Fellow) Niladri Sahoo (Research Fellow) Edward Millard (Ph.D. student) Arnau Brossa Gonzalo (Ph.D. student) Flavia Cicala (Ph.D. student) Ross Hunter (Ph.D. student) Andy Morris (Ph.D. student) Tom Jones (Ph.D. student) Bhagyashree Pagare (Ph.D. student) Ahmed Abdelmotteleb (Ph.D. student) Anja Beck (Ph.D. student) Alex Ward (Ph.D. student) Aidan Weiderhold (Ph.D. student)

Activities VELO including upgrades Simulation including EvtGen Event display Trigger, data stripping and real time analysis Physics analysis TORCH

VELO

We are members of the VErtex LOcator subdetector group and authors of the VELO performance paper (arXiv:1405.7808). We are involved in the upgrade of the VELO subdetector, and planning for future upgrades to cope with ever higher data rates.

Simulation

We are responsible for the EvtGen Monte Carlo generator within the experiment.

Trigger, data stripping and real time analysis

We are involved with the HLT2 (high-level trigger), data stripping and real time analysis activity.

TORCH

We are members of the TORCH collaboration, carrying out R&D for a novel time-of-flight detector that could provide particle identification information, to discriminate between charged pions, kaons and protons at low momentum.

Physics Analysis (more information here)

We have leading roles in the collaboration in measurements related to the angle γ (gamma) of the so-called Unitarity Triangle and of rare b hadron decays mediated by the b→sμ⁺μ⁻ transition. We also have interests in several other areas, particularly in analyses involving Dalitz plot analysis. We hosted an LHCb UK workshop on Dalitz plot analysis in October 2009.

Openings

Information on job openings and Ph.D. positions in the Warwick EPP group can be found here. Please feel free to contact us (T dot J dot Gershon at warwick dot ac dot uk) for more information or to discuss possibilities.

Theses and Alumni

• Paul Harrison (moved to ATLAS)
• Mark Whitehead CERN-THESIS-2012-130 "Observation of the decay B0→D0K+K− with the LHCb detector at CERN", moved to a CERN fellowship
• Matt Williams CERN-THESIS-2013-351 "Search for a wrong-flavour contribution to Bs→Dsπ decays and study of CP violation in Bs→DsK decays", moved to University of Birmingham
• David Dossett CERN-THESIS-2013-299 "Measurement of the B0d,s→K∗±h∓ decay branching fractions at the LHCb experiment", moved to University of Melbourne
• Matt Reid CERN-THESIS-2014-125 "Branching fraction measurements of B0(s)→J/ψK0Sh+h(′)− decays", took a job in the financial sector
• Tomas Pilar CERN-THESIS-2014-302 "Measurement of the neutral D meson mixing parameters in D0→KSπ+π− decays", took a job in software
• Rafael Silva Coutinho CERN-THESIS-2015-117 "Studies of charmless three-body b-hadron decays at LHCb", moved to University of Zurich, Switzerland
• Daniel Craik CERN-THESIS-2015-285 "A measurement of the CKM angle γ from studies of B→DKπ Dalitz plots", moved to University of Edinburgh
• Christoph Langenbruch (Marie Sklodowska-Curie Fellow at Warwick) moved to take up Emmy Noether fellowship at RWTH Aachen University, Germany
• Charlotte Wallace CERN-THESIS-2016-064 "Studies of excited D mesons in B meson decays", moved to University of Bristol and then to a civil service job
• Ronnie Rera CERN-THESIS-2017-018 "Search for the decay B+→D∗−K+π+", went into officer training with the US Air Force
• Chris Everett CERN-THESIS-2016-322 "An angular analysis of Λ_b→Λμ⁺μ⁻ decays at the LHCb experiment", moved to nuclear physics group at University of Liverpool
• Jean Wicht (Marie Sklodowska-Curie Fellow) returned to Switzerland and took a job in software
• Daniel O'Hanlon CERN-THESIS-2017-184 "Studies of CP-violation in charmless three-body b-hadron decays", moved to Universita Bologna, Italy with an INFN fellowship
• Wenbin Qian (Marie Sklodowska-Curie Fellow) moved to take up an academic position at UCAS, China
• Anton Poluektov (Postdoctoral research fellow) moved to take up an academic position at CPPM, Marseille
• David Loh (Ph.D. student), left academic research
• Abhijit Mathad CERN-THESIS-2018-237 "Search for CP violation in charmless three-body decays of strange-beauty baryons", moved to University of Zurich, Switzerland
• Andrew Crocombe CERN-THESIS-2018-360 "Studies of rare B→Kπμμ decays using the LHCb experiment", took a job in software
• Cayo Costa Sobral CERN-THESIS-2019-246 "Measurement of the relative branching fractions of charmless three-body B⁺ decays at LHCb", took a job in software
• Olli Lupton (Postdoctoral research fellow) moved to EPFL, working for the Blue Brain project

Completed grants

• Advanced Techniques to Search for Physics Beyond the Standard Model with the LHCb Detector at CERN, funded through an ERC Starting Investigator grant (ERC-2009-StG; link to Warwick page)
• Exploring New Phenomena through Flavour Changing Neutral Currents with LHCb, funded through a Marie Sklodowska-Curie Intra-European Fellowship under FP7 (FP7-PEOPLE-2013-IEF; link to Warwick page)
• Understanding Matter-Antimatter Asymmetries in B Meson Decays to Three Particles, funded through a Marie Sklodowska-Curie Individual Fellowship under Horizon 2020 (H2020-MSCA-IF-2014)