McGill.CA / Science / Department of Physics

Physical Society Colloquium

Interview for Faculty Position

Rare Vector-Vector B Decays:
a Laboratory for Strong and Weak Dynamics

Andrei Gritsan

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Rare B meson decays are of interest because they provide an opportunity to measure the weak-interaction parameters of the unitarity triangle and to search for elementary particles and interactions beyond the Standard Model. Understanding the origin of CP and Time symmetry violation in the weak interactions and search for physics outside the Standard Model became the focus of the modern high energy physics experiments such as BABAR. Rare vector-vector B decays are of special interest because their angular distributions reflect strong and weak interaction dynamics. Particular vector-vector decays have special features. The `penguin' decays B-> Φ K* and B-> ρ K* are good places to look for new physics participating in the penguin loops. The B-> ρ ρ decays have advantages over π π for measuring unitarity triangle angle α as a consequence of smaller penguin contributions. We will present the first experimental study of these on BABAR.

Friday, January 30th 2004, 16:00
Ernest Rutherford Physics Building, R.E. Bell Conference Room - room 103