Measurements of CP Violation, Mixing and Lifetimes of B Mesons with the BaBar Detector

TL;DR

This paper reports the first observation of CP violation in the $B^0$ meson system, precise measurements of B meson lifetimes, mixing frequency, and a novel technique for time-dependent CP violation measurements.

Contribution

It introduces a novel time-dependent measurement technique and provides new measurements of CP violation, lifetimes, and mixing parameters in B mesons.

Findings

CP violation in $B^0$ mesons observed at 4.1 sigma significance

Precise measurements of $B^+$ and $B^0$ lifetimes

First measurement of CP violation in $B^0 o ho^+ ho^-$ decays

Abstract

We report the observation of CP violation in the $B^0$ meson system. Using a novel technique for time-dependent measurements, we measure a non-zero value for the CP-violating amplitude $\sin 2\beta$ at the 4.1 $\sigma$ level. We also report on precision measurements of the $B^+$ and $B^0$ lifetimes and the $B^0\bar{B}^0$ mixing frequency $\Delta m_d$ obtained with the same technique and on a first measurement of the time-dependent CP-violating amplitude in $B^0\to \pi^+\pi^-$ decays.