Alan Schwartz (University of Cincinnati) "Challenging the Standard Model with the Belle(II) Experiment"

Abstract:
The Belle experiment in Japan began taking data in the late 1990’s and went on to record the world’s largest sample of B-anti-B meson pairs produced in a quantum correlated state. This initial state allowed Belle, and the BaBar experiment at SLAC, to measure CP violation in B decays with high accuracy. These measurements contributed to the awarding of the 2008 Nobel Prize in Physics to Kobayashi and Maskawa for their theory of CP violation. However, other measurements have exhibited discrepancies with the Standard Model, e.g., measurements of |V_ub| and |V_cb| , R(D) and R(D^*), etc. Over the past several years, the Belle detector and accelerator complex have been rebuilt and significantly upgraded to become the Belle II experiment. Belle II is designed to record 50 times the data set that Belle recorded, and with much improved detector performance. This forthcoming data should resolve several discrepancies observed by Belle and BaBar. Here we review some recent results from Belle and discuss the physics program and current status of Belle II.