Physics Guy@physicsguyPhysicists at the Large Hadron Collider are seeing fewer 'penguin' decays of B mesons than the Standard Model predicts, plus an odd pattern in the directions the particles travel.
The team studied about 650 billion B meson decays. The result falls short of discovery level, and part of it may come from hard-to-predict 'charming penguin' effects. A separate analysis at the CMS detector hints at a similar result.
Imperial College's Mark Smith says explaining penguin decays could also point towards dark matter, and expects the question to be settled within 5 to 10 years.
