Differences in the behaviour of matter and antimatter have been observed in $K$ and $B$ meson decays, but not yet in any baryon decay. Such differences are associated with the non-invariance of fundamental interactions under the combined charge-conjugation and parity transformations, known as $C\!P$ violation. Using data from the LHCb experiment at the Large Hadron Collider, a search is made for $C\!P$-violating asymmetries in the decay angle distributions of $\Lambda^0_b$ baryons decaying to $p\pi^-\pi^+\pi^-$ and $p\pi^-K^+K^-$ final states. These four-body hadronic decays are a promising place to search for sources of $C\!P$ violation both within and beyond the Standard Model of particle physics. We find evidence for $C\!P$ violation in $\Lambda^0_b$ to $p\pi^-\pi^+\pi^-$ decays with a statistical significance corresponding to 3.3 standard deviations including systematic uncertainties. This represents the first evidence for $C\!P$ violation in the baryon sector.
Binning scheme A is defined to exploit interference patterns arising from the resonant structure of the decay. Bins 1-4 focus on the region dominated by the $\Delta(1232)^{++}\to p\pi^{+}$. The other eight bins are defined to study regions where $p\pi^{-}$ esonances are present (5-8) on either side of the $\rho(770)^{0}\to\pi^{+}\pi^{-}$ resonances (5-12). Further splitting for $|\Phi|$ lower or greater than $\pi/2$ is done to reduce potential dilution of asymmetries.
Binning scheme A is defined to exploit interference patterns arising from the resonant structure of the decay. Bins 1-4 focus on the region dominated by the $\Delta(1232)^{++}\to p\pi^{+}$. The other eight bins are defined to study regions where $p\pi^{-}$ resonances are present (5-8) on either side of the $\rho(770)^{0}\to\pi^{+}\pi^{-}$ resonances (5-12). Further splitting for $|\Phi|$ lower or greater than $\pi/2$ is done to reduce potential dilution of asymmetries.
Definition of binning scheme B for the decay mode $\Lambda_b^0\to p\pi^-\pi^+\pi^-$.