Andrea Fodor


PhD Candidate in High Energy Experimental Physics
Anjina slika

I am doing my research using the Belle II particle detector. It is located at the SuperKEKB electron-positron collider, the successor of the KEKB collider, with 50 times higher luminosity. Electrons and positrons are collided at the energy at which B-mesons are copiously produced, making this a B- factory. The luminosity increase will enable Belle II to gather more data than any B-factory experiment ever before. With high luminosity comes the increase in beam background, threatening to diminish the detector performance.

Rutherford physics building
3600 University street
Office 325
McGill University
Montreal, QC H3A 2T8
afodor |at| physics |dot| mcgill |dot| ca
Follow @AndreaFodor

Commissioning is performed prior to the start of the experiment to ensure a safe environment for detector running. The phase 2 of the commissioning process ended just five days ago. My job during this phase of operation is to examine the data taken with the electromagnetic calorimeter, and determine how the undesirable background hits are distributed during varying accelerator conditions. I am comparing the results with the existing background simulation. This comparison helps to determine the accuracy of the simulation, which is also used for accessing the feasibility of different physics analyses with the Belle II detector.

Complimentary to this, I am doing a search for the B+ → μ+νμ decay. This decay mode is allowed in Standard Model, but it is heavily suppressed due to helicity conservation. With the data that will become available in 2019 and early 2020, I am expecting to improve on the result previously observed by the Belle experiment. I am currently optimizing the event selection based on the available simulation.