Experimental Particle Physics

Center for Astrophysics and Cosmology was also involved in a collaboration with the Japanese Organization for Accelerator Research (KEK) since 1999 where, within the framework of the Belle collaboration we investigated the differences between properties of particles and anti-particles called B mesons. The goal of the Belle experiment was the measurement of CP violation in the decays of the B mesons. The experiment operates at the KEKB accelerator, a high luminosity asymmetric energy e+ e- machine in the high energy particle physics research facility (KEK) in Japan. We were involved in the design and implementation of Belle radiation monitoring and abort interlock system and readout, and the design of the interaction region beam pipe.

Visit of professor Masatoshi Koshiba (小柴 昌俊), one of the founders of Neutrino astronomy and winner of 1/4 of the Nobel Prize for Physics in 2002, to the Belle and KEKB team at KEK.

Our results indicate a discrepancy between measured and theoretically predicted values of the so called CP asymmetry, which may be due to the existence of additional, yet undiscovered CP violating processes not present in the Standard model of elementary particle physics. The search for such processes, which continues at and Belle2 is crucial for the understanding of the evolution of the universe and its current properties.