It is with great sadness that we announce the sudden loss of Arnau Brossa Gonzalo, a postdoctoral researcher at the Galician Institute of High Energy Physics (IGFAE), working on the LHCb experiment, who died in Santiago on 21 July 2024 of complications from a climbing accident.

Arnau obtained a Bachelor’s degree in science in physics at the Universitat de Barcelona (UB), Spain, in 2016, specialising in theoretical physics. Afterwards, he undertook a master’s in astrophysics, particle physics and cosmology at UB, with a master's thesis on the LHCb experiment. From 2017 to 2022 he did his PhD studies in particle physics at the University of Warwick, UK, under the supervision of Professor Tim Gershon and Dr Thomas Latham. His thesis won the Springer Thesis Prize for outstanding PhD research.

After obtaining his PhD from the University of Warwick, he continued to work on the LHCb experiment. He joined the LHCb group at IGFAE in 2022, working first as a postdoctoral researcher and later as a Juan de la Cierva researcher. He joined the IGFAE’s Lepton Flavour Universality group, where he took on a leading role.

Arnau is survived by his mother, Mercè, his brother, David, and his uncle and aunt. His warmth, kindness, dedication, intelligence and competence will be deeply missed by his many friends at the institute and in the LHCb group in Santiago.

His friends and colleagues