The first year of the BABAR experiment at PEP-II

TL;DR

This paper reviews the first year of data collection and detector performance at the BABAR experiment at PEP-II, highlighting the experimental setup, detector capabilities, and analysis approaches for studying B mesons.

Contribution

It provides an overview of the BABAR detector's initial performance and the experimental setup at PEP-II during its first year of operation.

Findings

Successful data collection at Upsilon(4S) resonance

Achieved detector performance in tracking and particle identification

Established analysis frameworks for B physics studies

Abstract

The BABAR detector, situated at the SLAC PEP-II asymmetric e^+e^- collider, has been recording data at energies on and around the Upsilon(4S) resonance since May 1999. In this paper, we briefly describe the PEP-II B Factory and the BABAR detector. The performance presently achieved by the experiment in the areas of tracking, vertexing, calorimetry and particle identification is reviewed. Analysis concepts that are used in the various papers submitted to this conference are also discussed.