Chris Parkes

“The upgraded LHCb was a major undertaking—a 15-year design and construction project from a 1,900-member international collaboration.”

Chris Parkes · said date not stated · reported 2026-11-03

Professor Chris Parkes led the international LHCb collaboration through the construction of the upgrade and approval of the new result.

“The U.K. made the largest national contribution to the project, pioneering new technologies that have made today's result possible where we probe nature at a new scale. But this is also just the start; we are planning the construction of an experiment that will exploit the capabilities of the next-generation High Luminosity LHC, probing physics at an even smaller scale.”

Chris Parkes · said date not stated · reported 2026-11-03

Professor Parkes described the upgraded LHCb as a major undertaking and noted future plans for a next-generation experiment.

“This decay is remarkably unlikely; the chance of it happening is roughly like going on a romantic date and, on your very first try, finding the one perfect match for you among everyone on Earth.”

Chris Parkes · said date not stated · reported 2026-11-03

Professor Parkes analogized the rarity of the Bd to mu mu decay to finding a perfect romantic match on the first try.