Why do we exist? That is exactly what some of the experiments at Fermilab are trying to find out! To investigate how the universer began, physicists are studying the atom. Something so small to the naked eye is being used to explain the creation of the universe! At Fermilab, we study elementary particles to try to answer this question and other questions that have been pondered by man since the beginning of time.
We are aware of the Big Bang Theory. This is a theory that explains the development of the universe. When the universe exploded equal amounts of matter and antimatter sprung up.
Think of particles and antiparticles as complete opposites of each other. If a particle has a positive charge, then the antiparticle would have a negative charge. If the particle had a left hand, the antiparticle would have a right hand. There would be an equal amount of each found in the universe. For every one particle, its antiparticle would exist.
This is how the development of CP symmetry came about. "C" stands for charge conjugation. It explains the behavior of the particle and antiparticle. The "P" refers to the parity of the particle and antiparticle.
Think of parity as this, if you measure a table from left to right, you should get the same measurement if you did it from right to left. Likewise, what ever the charge of the particle, its antiparticle should be the reverse.
Advancement in technology allowed physicts to investigate CP symmetry. They were seeing some things that would violate CP symmetry. There were rare interactions involving weak forces within a Kaon 0, such as radioactivity. This caused a violation in the CP symmetry theory. It was being seen that nature did not always conserve "CP".
With "CP" violation being seen, it means there is a fundamental difference in the way the laws of physics treat matter (particle) and antimatter (antiparticle).
It was in 1964, when physicists, Cronin and Fitch were observing with the K-meson. The KS (kaon -short) will decay into two pions ( p +, p-), while K L (kaon- long) would decay into 3 pions (p+, p-, p0), but in some cases into two pions (p+, p- or a p0 ,p0), thus violating the CP symmetry.
Experiments in the KTeV (Kaons at the Tevatron) project are focusing on the particle interaction that leads to the observed predominance of matter over antimatter in the universe.
The KTeV project is allowing physicists at Fermilab to investigate the origins of CP violation. Thus, kaons are the primary objects of investigation.