| Seminar Date: | Tuesday, October 23, 2012 |
| Time: | 12:30 PM - 1:30 PM |
| Location: | KIPAC Auditorium |
| Abstract: | The mechanism of CP violation in weak interactions, as arising from the single physical phase in the three-generation CKM matrix, has been validated by more than a decade of intense experimental work, particularly with studies of B mesons at B factories. This success of the three-generation theory was recognized by the award of a share of the 2008 Nobel Prize in physics to Kobayashi and Maskawa. Since the Standard Model theory is CPT invariant, it predicts that the weak interaction is also time irreversible. However, probing directly the predicted time asymmetry, or weak arrow of time, without using an observable that also violates CP, has been proven difficult. In this seminar we shall discuss how the BaBar experiment at SLAC has conducted a new analysis of the data already used to measure CP violation, to observe for the first time the weak arrow of time through the exchange of initial and final states in transitions that can only be connected by a T-symmetry transformation. |
| Speaker: | Fernando Martinez-Vidal - Universitat de Valencia
 Professor Martinez-Vidal earned his Ph.D. from the University of Valencia in 1997, working on the DELPHI experiment. After a CERN fellowship, he moved on to postdoctoral work at CNRS and INFN-Pisa on the BaBar experiment. He has focused mainly on B and D meson mixing, and CP-, T- and CPT-violation, and has served as convenor of several working groups. He is also becoming involved with the LHCb experiment.
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| Presentation: | Presentation on 10/23/2012 |