From 4-8 April 2011 Nikhef hosted the 13th International Conference on B-Physics at Hadron Machines (BEAUTY 2011) at Felix Meritis, Amsterdam.
The focus of this meeting was on the exploration of matter-antimatter (CP-violating) asymmetries and rare phenomena in decays of so-called B (‘beauty’) particles, which challenge the Standard Model of particle physics. These precision measurements may actually reveal signals of possible ‘new physics’ lying beyond the Standard Model, which may help us to understand the baryon
asymmetry of the Universe.
A highlight of the conference was the presentation of first impressive results obtained at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in Geneva, Switzerland, where the LHCb experiment, which has a strong contribution from Nikhef, is specialized in the exploration of B mesons.
The conference attracted about 100 participants, including world experts from Europe, America and Asia, and had 60 invited talks. In addition to LHC results, the conference also discussed new measurements performed at the Tevatron close to Chicago, Illinois and explored the physics potential of upcoming B-physics experiments.
For further information and the slides of the presentations, please visit the conference website.