CP and T Violation: Challenging the Standard Model with the Belle Experiment

The Belle experiment began taking data in the late 1990’s and went on to record the world’s largest data set of B mesons produced in a quantum correlated state. Such an initial state allows one to study the phenomenon of CP violation, and CP violation in B meson decays was discovered by Belle in 2001. This measurement contributed to the awarding of the 2008 Nobel Prize in Physics to M. Kobayashi and T. Maskawa for their theory of CP violation. Now the Belle detector and accelerator complex are being upgraded to become the Belle II experiment. Belle II is designed to record 50 times more data than that recorded by Belle. This will allow Belle II to measure CP violation in many additional decay modes, and to also measure violations of time-reversal symmetry (T violation). Finally, this new data set should resolve several puzzles observed in the Belle data.