The Physics of the B Factories

This work is on the Physics of the B Factories. Part A of this book contains a brief description of the SLAC and KEK B Factories as well as their detectors, BaBar and Belle, and data taking related issues. Part B discusses tools and methods used by the experiments in order to obtain results. The results themselves can be found in Part C

The BaBar detector: Upgrades, operation and performance

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Measurement of time-dependent CP asymmetries and the CP-odd fraction in the decay B-0 -> D*+D*- RID C-2728-2008 RID C-5223-2009 RID C-5719-2008 RID D-1055-2009 RID A-2675-2009

We present a measurement of time-dependent CP asymmetries and an updated determination of the CP-odd fraction in the decay B-0-->D*+D*- using a data sample of 88x10(6)B (B) over bar pairs collected by the BABAR detector at the PEP-II B Factory at SLAC. We determine the CP-odd fraction to be 0.063+/-0.055(stat)+/-0.009(syst). The time-dependent CP asymmetry parameters Im(lambda(+)) and \lambda(+)\ are determined to be 0.05+/-0.29(stat)+/-0.10(syst) and 0.75+/-0.19(stat)+/-0.02(syst), respectively. The standard model predicts these parameters to be -sin2beta and 1, respectively, in the absence of penguin diagram contributions

Observation of a narrow meson state decaying to D-s(+)pi(0) at a mass of 2.32 GeV/c(2) RID C-2728-2008 RID C-5223-2009 RID C-5719-2008 RID D-1055-2009 RID A-2675-2009

We have observed a narrow state near 2.32 GeV/c(2) in the inclusive D(s)(+)pi(0) invariant mass distribution from e(+)e(-) annihilation data at energies near 10.6 GeV. The observed width is consistent with the experimental resolution. The small intrinsic width and the quantum numbers of the final state indicate that the decay violates isospin conservation. The state has natural spin-parity and the low mass suggests a J(P)=0(+) assignment. The data sample corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 91 fb(-1) recorded by the BABAR detector at the SLAC PEP-II asymmetric-energy e(+)e(-) storage ring

Measurement of B-0 -> D-s(*)D+*(-) branching fractions and B-0 -> D-s*D+*(-) polarization with a partial reconstruction technique RID C-2728-2008 RID C-5223-2009 RID C-5719-2008 RID D-1055-2009 RID A-2675-2009

We present a study of the decays B-0 --> D-s((*)) D*-, using 20.8 fb(-1) of e(+)e(-) annihilation data recorded with the BABAR detector. The analysis is conducted with a partial reconstruction technique, in which only the D-s((*)+) and the soft pion from the D*- decay are reconstructed. We measure the branching fractions B(B-0 --> Ds+D*-) = (1.03 +/- 0.14 +/- 0.13 +/- 0.26)% and B(B-0 --> D-s(*+) D*-) = (1.97 +/- 0.15 +/- 0.30+/- 0.49)%, where the first error is statistical, the second is systematic, and the third is the error due to the D-s(+) --> phipi(+) branching fraction uncertainty. From the B-0 --> D-s(*+) D*- angular distributions, we measure the fraction of longitudinal polarization Gamma(L)/Gamma = (51.9 +/- 5.0 +/- 2.8)%, which is consistent with theoretical predictions based on factorization

Simultaneous measurement of the B-0 meson lifetime and mixing frequency with B-0 -> D(*-)l(+)nu(l) decays RID C-2728-2008 RID C-5223-2009 RID C-5719-2008 RID D-1055-2009 RID A-2675-2009

We measure the B-0 lifetime tau(B)(0) and the B-0-(B) over bar (0) oscillation frequency Deltam(d) with a sample of approximately 14000 exclusively reconstructed B-0-->D(*-)l(+)nul signal events, selected from 23 million B (B) over bar pairs recorded at the Y(4S) resonance with the BABAR detector at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center. The decay position of the other B is determined with the remaining tracks in the event, and its b-quark flavor at the time of decay is determined with a tagging algorithm that exploits the correlation between the flavor of the b quark and the charges of its decay products. The lifetime and oscillation frequencies are measured simultaneously with an unbinned maximum-likelihood fit that uses, for each event, the measured difference in decay times of the two B mesons (Deltat), the calculated uncertainty on Deltat, the signal and background probabilities, and b-quark tagging information for the other B. The results are tau(B)(0)=(1.523(-0.023)(+0.024)+/-0.022) ps and Deltam(d)=(0.492+/-0.018+/-0.013) ps(-1). The statistical correlation coefficient between tau(B)(0) and Deltam(d) is -0.22