Kaon Physics


Book Description

In 1947, the first of what have come to be known as "strange particles" were detected. As the number and variety of these particles proliferated, physicists began to try to make sense of them. Some seemed to have masses about 900 times that of the electron, and existed in both charged and neutral varieties. These particles are now called kaons (or K mesons), and they have become the subject of some of the most exciting research in particle physics. Kaon Physics at the Turn of the Millennium presents cutting-edge papers by leading theorists and experimentalists that synthesize the current state of the field and suggest promising new directions for the future study of kaons. Topics covered include the history of kaon physics, direct CP violation in kaon decays, time reversal violation, CPT studies, theoretical aspects of kaon physics, rare kaon decays, hyperon physics, charm: CP violation and mixing, the physics of B mesons, and future opportunities for kaon physics in the twenty-first century.




B Decays


Book Description

This 2nd edition is an extensive update of "B Decays?. The revisions are necessary because of the extensive amount of new data and new theoretical ideas. This book reviews what is known about b-quark decays and also looks at what can be learned in the future.The importance of this research area is increasing, as evidenced by the approval of the luminosity upgrade for CESR and the asymmetric B factories at SLAC and KEK, and the possibility of experiments at hadron colliders.The key experimental observations made thus far, measurement of the lifetimes of the different B species, B0-B0 mixing, the discovery of ?Penguin? mediated decays, and the extraction of the CKM matrix elements Vub and Vcb from semileptonic decays, as well as more mundane results, are described in great detail by the experimentalists who have been closely involved with making the measurements. Theoretical progress in understanding b-quark decays using HQET and lattice gauge techniques are described by theorists who have developed and used these techniques.Synthesizing the experimental and theoretical information, several articles discuss the implications for the ?Standard Model? and how further tests can be done using measurements of CP violation in the B system.




Time-Dependent CP Violation Measurements


Book Description

This thesis describes a high-quality, high-precision method for the data analysis of an interesting elementary particle reaction. The data was collected at the Japanese B-meson factory KEKB with the Belle detector, one of the most successful large-scale experiments worldwide. CP violation is a subtle quantum effect that makes the world look different when simultaneously left and right and matter and antimatter are exchanged. This being a prerequisite for our own world to have developed from the big bang, there are only a few experimental indications of such effects, and their detection requires very intricate techniques. The discovery of CP violation in B meson decays garnered Kobayashi and Maskawa, who had predicted these findings as early as 1973, the 2008 Nobel prize in physics. This thesis describes in great detail what are by far the best measurements of branching ratios and CP violation parameters in two special reactions with two charm mesons in the final state. It presents an in-depth but accessible overview of the theory, phenomenology, experimental setup, data collection, Monte Carlo simulations, (blind) statistical data analysis, and systematic uncertainty studies.




CP Violation


Book Description

Why didn't the matter in our Universe annihilate with antimatter immediately after its creation? The study of CP violation may help to answer this fundamental question. This book presents theoretical tools necessary to understand this phenomenon. Reflecting the explosion of new results over the last decade, this second edition has been substantially expanded. It introduces charge conjugation, parity and time reversal, before describing the Kobayashi-Maskawa (KM) theory for CP violation and our understanding of CP violation in kaon decays. It reveals how the discovery of B mesons has provided a new laboratory to study CP violation with KM theory predicting large asymmetries, and discusses how these predictions have been confirmed since the first edition of this book. Later chapters describe the search for a new theory of nature's fundamental dynamics. This book is suitable for researchers in high energy, atomic and nuclear physics, and the history and philosophy of science.




Heavy Quark Physics


Book Description




Bayesian Reasoning in High-energy Physics


Book Description

Bayesian statistics is based on the intuitivetive idea that probability quantifies the degree of belief in the occurrence of an event. Many cases of evaluation of measurement uncertainty are considered in detail in this report.




Polarization and CP Violation Measurements


Book Description

This thesis describes the thorough analysis of the rare B meson decay into φ K* on data taken by the Belle Collaboration at the B-meson-factory KEKB over 10 years. This reaction is very interesting, because it in principle allows the observation of CP-violation effects. In the Standard Model however, no CP violation in this reaction is expected. An observation of CP asymmetries thus immediately implies new physics. This thesis presents an amplitude analysis of this decay and the search for CP violation in detail and discusses methods to solve related problems: The quantification of multivariate dependence and the improvement of numeric evaluation speed of normalization integrals in amplitude analysis. In addition it provides an overview of the theory, experimental setup, (blind) statistical data analysis and estimation of systematic uncertainties.







BCP4


Book Description

This book offers the first strong evidence of the existence of CP violation in neutral B decays extracted from sophisticated B factories in the US and Japan. It also holds out the expectation of rare B decays and D, K physics in the near future. In addition, new physics beyond the Standard Model is described. Both experimental and theoretical points of view are given.




Aspects of Symmetry


Book Description

For almost two decades, Sidney Coleman has been giving review lectures on frontier topics in theoretical high-energy physics at the International School of Subnuclear Physics held each year at Erice, Sicily. This volume is a collection of some of the best of these lectures. To this day they have few rivals for clarity of exposition and depth of insight. Although very popular when first published, many of the lectures have been difficult to obtain recently. Graduate students and professionals in high-energy physics will welcome this collection by a master of the field.