B-factory
In particle physics, a B-factory, or sometimes a beauty factory,[1] is a collider-based scientific machine designed to produce a large number (of the order of 109) of B mesons and analyze their properties. The tauons and D mesons are also copiously produced at B-factories, which allows precise studies of their properties.
Two B-factories were designed and built in the 1990s. They are both based on electron-positron colliders with the centre of mass energy tuned to the ϒ(4S) resonance peak, which is just above the threshold for decay into two B mesons (with short data taking periods at different energies). Of the two, the only one currently running is the Belle experiment at the KEKB collider in Tsukuba, Japan. The other one, the BaBar experiment at the PEP-II collider at SLAC laboratory in California, which was assembled in the late 1990s and conducted data taking operations from 1999 till early 2008, is currently being decommissioned.[2]
The B-factories yielded a rich harvest of results, including the first observation of CP violation outside of the kaon system, measurements of the CKM parameters |Vub| and |Vcb|, and measurements of purely leptonic B meson decays.
Proposals for next-generation B-factories include the SuperB designed to be built in Frascati near Rome in Italy, and Belle II in Japan.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ J.T. Volk et al. (1987). Letter of Intent for a Tevatron Beauty Factory. Fermilab Proposal #783. http://lss.fnal.gov/archive/test-proposal/0000/fermilab-proposal-0783.pdf.
- ^ http://www-conf.slac.stanford.edu/babardandd/Documents/DND_Safety_MARrevisionFO2009v4.pdf
[edit] External links
- B Factories in 60 seconds from symmetry magazine
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