The first year of the BABAR experiment at PEP-II

The BABAR detector, situated at the SLAC PEP-II asymmetric e^+e^- collider, has been recording data at energies on and around the Upsilon(4S) resonance since May 1999. In this paper, we briefly describe the PEP-II B Factory and the BABAR detector. The performance presently achieved by the experiment in the areas of tracking, vertexing, calorimetry and particle identification is reviewed. Analysis concepts that are used in the various papers submitted to this conference are also discussed

Study of inclusive DS(∗)+/−D_S^{(*)+/-} production in B decays and measurement of B0→D∗−DS(∗)+B^0 \to D^{*-}D_S^{(*)+} decays using a partial reconstruction technique

Electron-positron annihilation data collected by the BABAR detector near the Y(4S) resonance are used to study the inclusive decay of B mesons to D_S^(+/-) and D_S^(*+/-) mesons, where the D_S^(+/-) is reconstructed using the decay D_S^(+/-) --> phi pi^(+/-). The production fraction of inclusive D_S^((*)+/-) and the corresponding momentum spectra have been determined. The exclusive decays B^0 --> D^(*-)D_S^((*)+) are observed with a partial reconstruction technique which uses the soft pion from the D^(*+/-) decay in association with the reconstructed D_S^((*)+/-). The beam energy constraint is used to determine the missing mass recoiling against the D_S^(+/-) system, showing a clear signal for this process. From the observed rates, preliminary results for the corresponding branching fractions have been obtained

A measurement of the charged and neutral B meson lifetimes using fully reconstructed decays

Data collected with the BABAR detector at the PEP-II asymmetric B Factory at SLAC are used to study the lifetimes of the B^0 and B^+ mesons. The data sample consists of 7.4 fb-1 collected near the Y(4S) resonance. B^0 and B^+ mesons are fully reconstructed in several exclusive hadronic decay modes to charm and charmonium final states. The B lifetimes are determined from the flight length difference between the two B mesons which are pair-produced in the Y(4S) decay. The preliminary measurements of the lifetimes are tau_B0 = 1.506+/-0.052(stat)+/-0.029(syst) ps, tau_B+ = 1.602+/-0.049(stat)+/-0.035(syst) ps, and of their ratio is tau_B+/tau_B0 = 1.065+/-0.044(stat)+/-0.021(syst

Measurement of branching fractions for two-body charmless B decays to charged pions and kaons at BABAR

We present preliminary results of a search for charmless two-body B decays to charged pions and kaons using data collected by the BABAR detector at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center's PEP-II storage ring. In a sample of 8.8 million produced B-anti-B pairs we measure the branching fractions B(B^0 --> pi^+pi^-) = (9.3^{+2.6}_{-2.3}^{+1.2}_{-1.4}) x 10^{-6} and B(B^0 --> K^+\pi^-) = (12.5^{+3.0}_{-2.6}^{+1.3}_{-1.7}) x 10^{-6}, where the first uncertainty is statistical and the second is systematic. For the decay B^0 --> K^+K^- we find no significant signal and set an upper limit of B(B^0 --> K^+K^-) 6.6 x 10^{-6} at the 90% confidence level

A study of time-dependent CP-violating asymmetries in B0→J/ψKS0B^{0} \to J/\psi K^{0}_{S} and B0→ψ(2S)KS0B^{0} \to \psi(2S) K^{0}_{S} decays

We present a preliminary measurement of time-dependent CP-violating asymmetries in B0 -> J/psi K0S and B0 -> psi(2S) K0S decays recorded by the BABAR detector at the PEP-II asymmetric-energy B Factory at SLAC. The data sample consists of 9.0 fb-1 collected at the Y(4S) resonance and 0.8 fb-1 off-resonance. One of the neutral B mesons, produced in pairs at the Y(4S), is fully reconstructed. The flavor of the other neutral B meson is tagged at the time of its decay, mainly with the charge of identified leptons and kaons. A neural network tagging algorithm is used to recover events without a clear lepton or kaon tag. The time difference between the decays is determined by measuring the distance between the decay vertices. Wrong-tag probabilities and the time resolution function are measured with samples of fully-reconstructed semileptonic and hadronic neutral B final states. The value of the asymmetry amplitude, sin2beta, is determined from a maximum likelihood fit to the time distribution of 120 tagged B0 -> J/psi K0S and B0 -> psi(2S) K0S candidates to be sin2beta = 0.12+/-0.37 (stat) +/- 0.09 (syst) (preliminary)