Matter is everyday stuff. And anitmatter is the stuff of science
fiction. Or is it? As it turns out, for every matter particle, there is
an antimatter particle. This antimatter can be made in our labs and
behaves exactly like matter - is stable, you could make chairs and
tables out of it! Until it comes in contact with matter! Then you get
tremendous explosions of energy.
Why is the universe made entirely out of matter? If
antimatter is identical to matter where is it? This question is
perhaps the most fundamental question in physics
today!
An experiment done in 1964 using "K" particles indicates that there is some
small difference between matter and antimatter. While that experiment
has been successfully repeated many times since, no experiment using
particles other than "K" mesons has ever shown the same result. We are now
participating in a landmark experiment at Stanford Linear Accelerator Center which
searches for new evidence of a matter-antimatter asymmetry.
Our experiment, called BaBar, produces a heavy new
particle-antiparticle pair called "B" and "anti-B".
We live in exciting times - we may finally start to
understand why the universe is not just a giant bath of energy. Indeed,
we may understand why life and all that it is based on can exist.
Selected Publications
"Observation of CP Violation in the B0 meson system," B. Aubert et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 87
901801 (2001).
"Multidimensional Resonance Analysis of Λ+c → p K-π+," E. M. Aitalal et al., Physics
Letters B471, 449 (2000).
"Measurement of the D+s lifetime," E. M. Aitala et al., Physics Letters B445, 449 (1999)
"A Search for D0 - Anti-D0 Mixing and Doubly Cabibbo Suppressed Decays of the D0 in
Hadronic Final States," E. M. Aitala et al., Physical Review D57, 13 (1998).
"Search fo CP Violation in Charged D Meson Decays," E. M. Aitala et al., Physics Letters B403, 377
(1997).
