Lines of activities:
One of the most interesting and intriguing themes in Particle Physics is the difference in the behavior of matter and antimatter as it disintegrates. It is the so-called Charge-Parity symmetry (CP) violation, a phenomenon necessary to explain the observed abundance of matter on anti-matter in the Universe. The LHCb experiment, located at the Large Hadron Collider (CERN, Switzerland), aims to study the production and decay of heavy hadrons, which contain the quarks charm (c) and beauty (b). In addition to CP violation, the LHCb studies rare decays (where new particles or couplings can alter the predictions of the Standard Model), exotic states (pentaquarks, tetraquarks, etc.) and new resonances, and generally seeks to understand the dynamics of production and decay of heavy flavors.
The PUC-Rio group is a member of the LHCb Collaboration and has been working specifically on the study of hadronic D and B meson decays, with emphasis on the CP violation, production and resonance decay phenomena.