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BaBar Detector for the PEP-II B Factory
One of SCIPP's local projects is BaBar. BaBar stands for the two meson particles being researched, B and B-bar. This experiment makes use of electron-positron (a positron is an anti-matter electron) annihilation to produce a very massive state of matter known as the bottom meson. Detailed studies of the time-dependence of the decay patterns of this unstable form of matter is expected to shed light on the nature of so-called "CP Violation" (Charged Parity) in the fundamental interactions of nature.
The figure above is the SLAC accelerator ring. It was developed to create the collision rate needed for electrons and positrons, coming from opposite directions, to hit and collide in order to produce meson B particles. The experiment also hopes to answer questions of relevance to cosmologists about how it came to be that the universe is made up of particles without the same number of anti-particles, their counterparts. This may begin to explain the dynamics of the origin of the universe.