B Quark physics at LHCb In official LHCb papers, it is stated that the detector covers a pseudo-rapidity range of $2<\eta<5$, which translates to a range of angles wrt. the beamline of $\sim 1^\circ -15^\circ$ (which I guess explains the term "forward spectrometer"). They say this is done purposefully to study particles containing $b$ or $c$ quarks; now, why is that?
How is B physics at colliders related to large pseudo-rapidity?
 A: The basic goal of LHCb is to study CP violation involved in decays of hadrons with a beauty quantum number.

You ask:
How is B physics at colliders related to large pseudo-rapidity

The standard model predicts a large multiplicity for low p_transverse, and this fits the data. In order to get the high statistics fast , the detector was designed to be efficient in the forward direction.


The LHCb detector is optimized to operate in the forward direction, close to the beam axis, where a higher flux of b and c hadrons is expected. The main strengths of the experiment lie in its ability to measure particle production vertices and trajectories precisely, to identify charged particles efficiently, and to make swift and robust decisions about which events to retain and which to discard, all the while sustaining high rates and high radiation doses in the hostile environment of LHC collisions.


The latest news, January 30:

The LHCb collaboration has published today in Nature Physics the first evidence for the violation of the CP symmetry in baryon decays with statistical significance of 3.3 standard deviations (σ). CP violation has been observed in K and B meson decays, but not yet in any baryon decay. If the measurement is confirmed with a statistical significance of 5σ using a larger data sample, it will be the first time that an asymmetry in the decay rate of baryon and an anti-baryon is observed.

A: At LHC energies, $b\overline{b}$ pairs can be created in collisions where one colliding parton carries significantly more momentum than the other. This is statistically more likely to be the case than colliding partons carrying similar momentum. Here are some plots of the pseudorapidity and polar angle distributions of simulated $b\overline{b}$ pairs at $\sqrt{s}=14~\mathrm{TeV}$.


