In the recent lead-proton run at the LHC, the Large Hadron Collider beauty experiment took proton-ion data for the first time

The Large Hadron Collider beauty experiment took proton-ion data for the first time last month

A Higgs-like boson, more new particles and record performance at the LHC: 2012 has been good to CERN

Highlights included sensitive searches for new physics, the decay of a Bs meson, quark-gluon plasma and insights on the structure of the proton

At the Hadron Collider Symposium in Kyoto, LHCb presented a 3.5-sigma result for a B⁰_S particle decaying into two muons

The LHCb collaboration has observed two new excited states of the Λb beauty particle, confirming Standard-Model predictions

The Standard Model predicts the existence of these new states but this is the first time they have been confirmed in experiments

Results presented at the Moriond conference by LHCb put stringent limits on the current theory of particle physics, the Standard Model

Find out the schedule for LHC beams and the physics the LHC experiments will be investigating this year