Life of the experiment
Life of the experiment

Evolution with time of the luminosity recorded by the experiment.

History and main milestones

November 1993 : formation of the collaboration. 

May 1999 : beginning of data taking.

Summer 2001 : first observation of CP violation in the B meson system.

Summer 2004 : first observation of direct CP violation in the B meson system. 

Summer 2005 : high performance of the collider at more than three times the nominal instantaneous luminosity.

April 2008 : end of data taking.

July 2014 : publication of the legacy book by the BABAR and Belle experiments: "The Physics of the B-Factories", Eur. Phys. J C 74, 3026 (2014).

 

Highlights

  • First observation of CP violation in the B meson system in 2001. 
  • Discovery of new mesons DsJ in 2003. 
  • First constraints on the alpha and gamma angles of the unitarity triangle in 2003.
  • First observation of direct CP violation in the B meson system in 2004.
  • First observation of the D0 mixing in 2007.
  • Checking of CPT conservation in 2008.
  • Discovery of the eta-b meson in 2008.
  • First direct observation of T violation (time reversal) in 2012.
 

Outcome of the experiment

BABAR data taking ended in April 2008, with a total integrated luminosity of 531 fb-1.

The constraints which have been placed on CP violation parameters, illustrated on the unitarity triangle, have radically improved our knowledge of this field, previously hardly constaint. They are in good agreement with the Srandard Model predictions and have validated the explaination of CP violation in the quark ssector proposed by the theoriticians Kobayashi and Maskawa, who obtained for this reason the Nobel Price in Physics in 2008. 

The BABAR collaboration published more than 500 physics papers in scientific journals and lead to many talks in international conferences.

 

 

Perspectives

The analysis of the BABAR data still goes on, though less intensively.  

The study of B-meson physics is now done by the LHCb experiment, and will be done in the near future by the Belle-2 experiment.

 

 
Life of the experiment

Constraints obtained on the unitarity triangle.

#3875 - Last update : 01/31 2017

 

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