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The Book on B Factories

(Photo - B factory book logo)
The B-factory book logo. (Photo courtesy the BaBar and Belle collaborations.)

The BaBar Collaboration and the Belle Collaboration are moving forward with plans for a book documenting the history of B-factory physics revolutionized by the sister PEP-II and KEK B research facilities in the USA and Japan. The book, tentatively titled The B-factories Book, will bring together all of the work done by both collaborations into a very detailed and comprehensive collection, while also examining the ways that B-factory physics has impacted the physics field at large.

"With this book we aim to record the story of the scientific journey that BaBar and Belle have traveled on over the past decade," said Adrian Bevan, co-editor from the BaBar collaboration.

"This book will document the sophisticated tools and techniques used at Belle and BaBar and will be an essential reference for physicists at the next generation Super B factories," said co-editor from Belle Bostjan Golob of the University of Ljubljana in Slovenia.

(Photo - B factory book key editors at SLAC)
The B-factory book key editors held their first working meeting at SLAC last Friday and Saturday. From left: Adrian Bevan, Thomas Mannel, Bostjan Golob, Soeren Prell, Bruce Yabsley (Photo by Brad Plummer.)

Five editors have been selected for the book, two from each collaboration and a fifth theory editor. Bevan, a lecturer at Queen Mary, University of London, will serve as BaBar co-editor along with Iowa State University physics professor Soeren Prell. From the Belle Collaboration, Golob will co-edit along with Bruce Yabsley of the University of Sydney. Thomas Mannel from the University of Siegen in Germany will act as the fifth editor, and expand on the insights into how B-factory physics have impacted theories about the behavior of fundamental particles. The five editors will work with experts from both collaborations and theorists on different sections of the book.

While work has started on the B-factories Book with the aim of describing the last decade of results from BaBar and Belle, neither experiment is finished. BaBar is still producing numerous new analyses, and Belle will continue to take data until near the end of 2009. Competition and scientific discussion between the two B-factories is credited with moving the field further and faster than either facility could have done alone.

BaBar and Belle have established what physicsts call the "CKM" portion of the Standard Model, which was behind the 2008 Nobel Prize in Physics. "The purpose of the book is to document this tremendous achievement of the two B factories and to pave the way for future precision tests in [this] sector," Mannel said.

The Belle and BaBar contributors met for the first time Friday and Saturday, October 30-31, at SLAC to discuss the project, which they expect will take two to three years to complete.

—Calla Cofield
  SLAC Today, November 5, 2009