Getting to the heart of the matter imbalance

Scientists are exploring new physics to explain why there is more matter than antimatter in the universe, according to a study published in Physical Review Letters.

The Big Bang should have created equal amounts of matter and antimatter in the early universe, but today there is far more matter than antimatter. The existence of so-called charge-parity (CP) violations, differences in the behaviour of matter and antimatter particles, could account for this imbalance.

Using data from the Belle detector at the KEKB collider in Japan, an international team of physicists, including researchers from the Moscow Engineering Physics Institute, have for the first time observed the decay of subatomic particles called charmed or ‘D’ mesons, which are the lightest mesons, allowing them to search for CP violations.

Although no CP violations were observed, the work could provide deeper insights into the origins of matter.

This article was first published by Springer Nature. Read the original article here.