In physics, and specifically particle physics, CP violation is a violation of the postulated CP symmetry of the laws of physics. It plays an important role in theories of cosmology that attempt to explain the dominance of matter over antimatter in the present Universe. The discovery of CP violation in 1964 in the decays of neutral kaons resulted in the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1980 for its discoverers James Cronin and Val Fitch. The study of CP violation remains a vibrant area of theoretical and exp ...
In 1964, James Cronin and Val Fitch provided clear evidence that CP symmetry could be broken, too, winning them the 1980 Nobel Prize. Their discovery showed that weak interactions violate both the charge-conjugation symmetry C between particles and antiparticles and at the same time also violate P or parity. The discovery shocked particle physics and opened the door to questions still at the core of particle physics and of cosmology today. The lack of an exact CP symmetry, but also the fact that it is ...
CP is the product of two symmetries: C for charge conjugation, which transforms a particle into its antiparticle, and P for parity, which creates the mirror image of a physical system. The strong interaction and electromagnetic interaction are invariant under the CP transformation operation, but this symmetry is slightly violated during certain types of weak decay. Historically, CP-symmetry was proposed to restore order after the ...
