arXiv subjects

S. Bacher

Publications and source records attributed to S. Bacher.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2025

Radiation damage study of Belle II silicon strip sensors with 90 MeV electron irradiation

The silicon strip sensors of the Belle II silicon vertex detector were irradiated with 90 MeV electron beams up to an equivalent 1-MeV-neutron fluence of $3.0\times 10^{13}~{\rm n}_{\rm eq}/{\rm cm^2}$. We measure changes in sensor properties induced by radiation damage in the semiconductor bulk. Electrons around this energy are a major source of beam-induced background during Belle II operation. We discuss observed changes in full depletion voltage, sensor leakage current, noise, and charge collection. The sensor bulk type inverts at an equivalent 1-MeV-neutron fluence of $6.0\times 10^{12}~{\rm n}_{\rm eq}/{\rm cm^2}$. The leakage current increases proportionally to the radiation dose. We determine a damage constant of $3.9 \times 10^{-17}$ A/cm at 17 C$^\circ$ immediately after irradiation, which drops significantly to approximately 40% of the initial value in 200 hours, then stabilizes to approximately 30% of the initial value in 1000 hours. We measure sensor noise and signal charge for a sensor irradiated with the equivalent 1-MeV-neutron fluence of $3.0\times 10^{13}~{\rm n}_{\rm eq}/{\rm cm^2}$. Noise increases by approximately 44% after irradiation, while signal charge does not change significantly when a sufficiently high bias voltage is applied.

physics.ins-det↗

arXiv2025

Operational experience and performance of the Silicon Vertex Detector after the first long shutdown of Belle II

In 2024, the Belle II experiment resumed data taking after the Long Shutdown 1, which was required to install a two-layer pixel detector and upgrade accelerator components. We describe the challenges of this shutdown and the operational experience thereafter. With new data, the silicon-strip vertex detector (SVD) confirmed the high hit efficiency, the large signal-to-noise ratio, and the excellent cluster position resolution. In the coming years, the SuperKEKB peak luminosity is expected to increase to its target value, resulting in a larger SVD occupancy caused by beam background. Considerable efforts have been made to improve SVD reconstruction software by exploiting the excellent SVD hit-time resolution to determine the collision time and reject off-time particle hits. A novel procedure to group SVD hits event-by-event, based on their time, has been developed using the grouping information during reconstruction, significantly reducing the fake rate while preserving the tracking efficiency. The front-end chip (APV25) is operated in the multi-peak mode, which reads six samples. A 3/6-mixed acquisition mode, based on the timing precision of the trigger, reduces background occupancy, trigger dead-time, and data size. Studies of the radiation damage show that the SVD performance will not seriously degrade during the lifetime of the detector, despite moderate radiation-induced increases in sensor current and strip noise.

physics.ins-det↗

arXiv2024

Silicon Vertex Detector of the Belle II Experiment

The silicon vertex detector (SVD) is installed at the heart of the Belle II experiment, taking data at the high-luminosity $B$-Factory SuperKEKB since 2019. The detector has shown a stable and above-99\% hit efficiency, with a large signal-to-noise in all sensors since the beginning of data taking. Cluster position and time resolution have been measured with 2020 and 2022 data and show excellent performance and stability. The effect of radiation damage is visible, but not affecting the performance. As the luminosity increases, higher machine backgrounds are expected and the excellent hit-time information in SVD can be exploited for background rejection. In particular, we have recently developed a novel procedure to select hits by grouping them event-by-event based on their time. This new procedure allows a significant reduction of the fake rate, while preserving the tracking efficiency, and it has therefore replaced the previous cut-based procedure. We have developed a method that uses the SVD hits to estimate the track time (previously unavailable) and the collision time. It has a similar precision to the estimate based on the drift chamber but its execution time is three orders of magnitude smaller, allowing a faster online reconstruction that is crucial in a high luminosity regime. The track time is a powerful information provided to analysis that allows, together with the above-mention grouping selection, to raise the occupancy limit above that expected at nominal luminosity, leaving room for a safety factor. Finally, in June 2022 the data taking of the Belle II experiment was stopped to install a new two-layer DEPFET detector (PXD) and upgrade components of the accelerator. The whole silicon tracker (PXD+SVD) has been extracted from Belle II, the new PXD installed, the detector closed and commissioned. We briefly describe the SVD results of this upgrade.

hep-ex↗

arXiv2023

Search for lepton-flavor-violating $τ^- \to \ell^-ϕ$ decays in 2019-2021 Belle II data

We report a search for lepton-flavor-violating decays $τ^- \to \ell^- ϕ$ ($\ell^- =e^-,μ^-$) at the Belle II experiment, using a sample of electron-positron data produced at the SuperKEKB collider in 2019-2021 and corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 190 fb$^{-1}$. We use a new untagged selection for $e^+e^- \to τ^+τ^-$ events, where the signal $τ$ is searched for as a neutrinoless final state of a single charged lepton and a $ϕ$ meson and the other $τ$ is not reconstructed in any specific decay mode, in contrast to previous measurements by the BaBar and Belle experiments. We find no evidence for $τ^- \to \ell^- ϕ$ decays and obtain upper limits on the branching fractions at 90% confidence level of 23 $\times 10^{-8}$ and 9.7$\times 10^{-8}$ for $τ^- \rightarrow e^-ϕ$ and $τ^- \rightarrow μ^-ϕ$, respectively

hep-ex↗

arXiv2023

Observation of ${B\to D^{(*)} K^- K^{0}_S}$ decays using the 2019-2022 Belle II data sample

We present a measurement of the branching fractions of four $B^{0,-}\to D^{(*)+,0} K^- K^{0}_S$ decay modes. The measurement is based on data from SuperKEKB electron-positron collisions at the $Υ(4S)$ resonance collected with the Belle II detector and corresponding to an integrated luminosity of ${362~\text{fb}^{-1}}$. The event yields are extracted from fits to the distributions of the difference between expected and observed $B$ meson energy to separate signal and background, and are efficiency-corrected as a function of the invariant mass of the $K^-K_S^0$ system. We find the branching fractions to be: \[ \text{B}(B^-\to D^0K^-K_S^0)=(1.89\pm 0.16\pm 0.10)\times 10^{-4}, \] \[ \text{B}(\overline B{}^0\to D^+K^-K_S^0)=(0.85\pm 0.11\pm 0.05)\times 10^{-4},\] \[ \text{B}(B^-\to D^{*0}K^-K_S^0)=(1.57\pm 0.27\pm 0.12)\times 10^{-4}, \] \[ \text{B}(\overline B{}^0\to D^{*+}K^-K_S^0)=(0.96\pm 0.18\pm 0.06)\times 10^{-4},\] where the first uncertainty is statistical and the second systematic. These results include the first observation of $\overline B{}^0\to D^+K^-K_S^0$, $B^-\to D^{*0}K^-K_S^0$, and $\overline B{}^0\to D^{*+}K^-K_S^0$ decays and a significant improvement in the precision of $\text{B}(B^-\to D^0K^-K_S^0)$ compared to previous measurements.

hep-ex↗

arXiv2022

Reconstruction of $B \to ρ\ell ν_\ell$ decays identified using hadronic decays of the recoil $B$ meson in 2019 -- 2021 Belle II data

We present results on the semileptonic decays $B^0 \to ρ^- \ell^+ ν_\ell$ and $B^+ \to ρ^0 \ell^+ ν_\ell$ in a sample corresponding to 189.9/fb of Belle II data at the SuperKEKB $e^- e^+$ collider. Signal decays are identified using full reconstruction of the recoil $B$ meson in hadronic final states. We determine the total branching fractions via fits to the distributions of the square of the "missing" mass in the event and the dipion mass in the signal candidate and find ${\mathcal{B}(B^0\toρ^-\ell^+ ν_\ell) = (4.12 \pm 0.64(\mathrm{stat}) \pm 1.16(\mathrm{syst})) \times 10^{-4}}$ and ${\mathcal{B}({B^+\toρ^0\ell^+ν_\ell}) = (1.77 \pm 0.23 (\mathrm{stat}) \pm 0.36 (\mathrm{syst})) \times 10^{-4}}$ where the dominant systematic uncertainty comes from modeling the nonresonant $B\to (ππ)\ell^+ν_\ell$ contribution.

hep-ex↗

arXiv2022

Determination of $|V_{ub}|$ from untagged $B^0\toπ^- \ell^+ ν_{\ell}$ decays using 2019-2021 Belle II data

We present an analysis of the charmless semileptonic decay $B^0\toπ^- \ell^+ ν_{\ell}$, where $\ell = e, μ$, from 198.0 million pairs of $B\bar{B}$ mesons recorded by the Belle II detector at the SuperKEKB electron-positron collider. The decay is reconstructed without identifying the partner $B$ meson. The partial branching fractions are measured independently for $B^0\toπ^- e^+ ν_{e}$ and $B^0\toπ^- μ^+ ν_μ$ as functions of $q^{2}$ (momentum transfer squared), using 3896 $B^0\toπ^- e^+ ν_{e}$ and 5466 $B^0\toπ^- μ^+ ν_μ$ decays. The total branching fraction is found to be $(1.426 \pm 0.056 \pm 0.125) \times 10^{-4}$ for $B^0\toπ^- \ell^+ ν_{\ell}$ decays, where the uncertainties are statistical and systematic, respectively. By fitting the measured partial branching fractions as functions of $q^{2}$, together with constraints on the nonperturbative hadronic contribution from lattice QCD calculations, the magnitude of the Cabibbo-Kobayashi-Maskawa matrix element $V_{ub}$, $(3.55 \pm 0.12 \pm 0.13 \pm 0.17) \times 10^{-3}$, is extracted. Here, the first uncertainty is statistical, the second is systematic and the third is theoretical.

hep-ex↗

arXiv2022

Determination of $|V_{cb}|$ from $B\to D\ellν$ decays using 2019-2021 Belle II data

We present a determination of the magnitude of the Cabibbo-Kobayashi-Maskawa (CKM) matrix element $V_{cb}$ using $B\to D\ellν$ decays. The result is based on $e^+e^-\toΥ(4S)$ data recorded by the Belle II detector corresponding to 189.2/fb of integrated luminosity. The semileptonic decays $B^0\to D^-(\to K^+π^-π^-)\ell^+ν_\ell$ and $B^+\to\bar D^0(\to K^+π^-)\ell^+ν_\ell$ are reconstructed, where $\ell$ is either electron or a muon. The second $B$ meson in the $Υ(4S)$ event is not explicitly reconstructed. Using the diamond-frame method, we determine the $B$ meson four-momentum and thus the hadronic recoil. We extract the partial decay rates as functions of $w$ and perform a fit to the decay form-factor and the CKM parameter $|V_{cb}|$ using the BGL parameterization of the form factor and lattice QCD input from the FNAL/MILC and HPQCD collaborations. We obtain $η_{EW}|V_{cb}|=(38.53\pm 1.15)\times 10^{-3}$, where $η_{EW}$ is an electroweak correction, and the error accounts for theoretical and experimental sources of uncertainty.

hep-ex↗

arXiv2022

Measurement of the photon-energy spectrum in inclusive $B\rightarrow X_{s}γ$ decays identified using hadronic decays of the recoil $B$ meson in 2019-2021 Belle II data

We measure the photon-energy spectrum in radiative bottom-meson ($B$) decays into inclusive final states involving a strange hadron and a photon. We use SuperKEKB electron-positron collisions corresponding to $189~\mathrm{fb}^{-1}$ of integrated luminosity collected at the $Υ(4S)$ resonance by the Belle II experiment. The partner $B$ candidates are fully reconstructed using a large number of hadronic channels. The $B \rightarrow X_s γ$ partial branching fractions are measured as a function of photon energy in the signal $B$ meson rest frame in eight bins above $1.8~\mathrm{GeV}$. The background-subtracted signal yield for this photon energy region is $343 \pm 122$ events. Integrated branching fractions for three photon energy thresholds of $1.8~\mathrm{GeV}$, $2.0~\mathrm{GeV}$, and $2.1~\mathrm{GeV}$ are also reported, and found to be in agreement with world averages.

hep-ex↗

arXiv2022

Measurement of decay-time dependent $CP$ violation in $B^0 \rightarrow K^0_S K^0_S K^0_S$ using 2019--2021 Belle II data

We report a measurement of decay-time dependent $CP$-violating parameters in $B^0 \rightarrow K^0_S K^0_S K^0_S$ decays. We use $(198.0 \pm 3.0) \times 10^6\ B\overline{B}$ pairs collected at the $Υ(4S)$ resonance with the Belle II detector at the SuperKEKB asymmetric-energy $e^+e^-$ collider. The observed mixing-induced and direct $CP$ violation parameters are $\mathcal{S} = -1.86\ _{-0.46}^{+0.91}~{\rm (stat)} \pm 0.09~{\rm (syst)}$ and $\mathcal{A} = -0.22\ _{-0.27}^{+0.30}~{\rm (stat)} \pm 0.04~{\rm (syst)}$, respectively.

hep-ex↗

arXiv2022

Study of Exclusive $B \to πe^+ ν_e$ Decays with Hadronic Full-event-interpretation Tagging in 189.3 fb$^{-1}$ of Belle II Data

We present a reconstruction of the semileptonic decays $B^0 \to π^- e^+ ν_e$ and $B^+ \to π^0 e^+ ν_e$ in a sample corresponding to 189.3 fb$^{-1}$ of Belle II data, using events where the partner $B$-meson is reconstructed from a large variety of hadronic channels via a tagging algorithm known as the full-event-interpretation. We determine the partial branching fractions in three bins of the squared momentum transfer to the leptonic system using fits to the distribution of the square of the missing mass. The partial branching fractions are summed to determine $\mathcal{B}(B^0 \to π^- e^+ ν_e)$ = (1.43 $\pm$ 0.27(stat) $\pm$ 0.07(syst)) $\times 10^{-4}$ and $\mathcal{B}(B^+ \to π^0 e^+ ν_e)$ = (8.33 $\pm$ 1.67(stat) $\pm$ 0.55(syst)) $\times 10^{-5}$. We extract a first Belle II measurement of the magnitude of the Cabibbo-Kobayashi-Maskawa matrix element $|V_{\mathrm{ub}}|$, with $|V_{\mathrm{ub}}|$ = (3.88 $\pm$ 0.45) $\times 10^{-3}$.

hep-ex↗

arXiv2022

Measurement of the branching fraction for the decay $B \to K^{\ast}(892)\ell^+\ell^-$ at Belle II

We report a measurement of the branching fraction of $B \to K^{\ast}(892)\ell^+\ell^-$ decays, where $\ell^+\ell^- = μ^+μ^-$ or $e^+e^-$, using electron-positron collisions recorded at an energy at or near the $Υ(4S)$ mass and corresponding to an integrated luminosity of $189$ fb$^{-1}$. The data was collected during 2019--2021 by the Belle II experiment at the SuperKEKB $e^{+}e^{-}$ asymmetric-energy collider. We reconstruct $K^{\ast}(892)$ candidates in the $K^+π^-$, $K_{S}^{0}π^+$, and $K^+π^0$ final states. The signal yields with statistical uncertainties are $22\pm 6$, $18 \pm 6$, and $38 \pm 9$ for the decays $B \to K^{\ast}(892)μ^+μ^-$, $B \to K^{\ast}(892)e^+e^-$, and $B \to K^{\ast}(892)\ell^+\ell^-$, respectively. We measure the branching fractions of these decays for the entire range of the dilepton mass, excluding the very low mass region to suppress the $B \to K^{\ast}(892)γ(\to e^+e^-)$ background and regions compatible with decays of charmonium resonances, to be \begin{equation} {\cal B}(B \to K^{\ast}(892)μ^+μ^-) = (1.19 \pm 0.31 ^{+0.08}_{-0.07}) \times 10^{-6}, {\cal B}(B \to K^{\ast}(892)e^+e^-) = (1.42 \pm 0.48 \pm 0.09)\times 10^{-6}, {\cal B}(B \to K^{\ast}(892)\ell^+\ell^-) = (1.25 \pm 0.30 ^{+0.08}_{-0.07}) \times 10^{-6}, \end{equation} where the first and second uncertainties are statistical and systematic, respectively. These results, limited by sample size, are the first measurements of $B \to K^{\ast}(892)\ell^+\ell^-$ branching fractions from the Belle II experiment.

hep-ex↗

arXiv2022

Measurement of the cluster position resolution of the Belle II Silicon Vertex Detector

The Silicon Vertex Detector (SVD), with its four double-sided silicon strip sensor layers, is one of the two vertex sub-detectors of Belle II operating at SuperKEKB collider (KEK, Japan). Since 2019 and the start of the data taking, the SVD has demonstrated a reliable and highly efficient operation, even running in an environment with harsh beam backgrounds that are induced by the world's highest instantaneous luminosity. In order to provide the best quality track reconstruction with an efficient pattern recognition and track fit, and to correctly propagate the uncertainty on the hit's position to the track parameters, it is crucial to precisely estimate the resolution of the cluster position measurement. Several methods for estimating the position resolution directly from the data will be discussed.

physics.ins-det↗

arXiv2022

Measurements of the branching fraction, isospin asymmetry, and lepton-universality ratio in $B \to J/ψK$ decays at Belle II

We report a study of $B \to J/ψ(\ell^{+}\ell^{-})K$ decays, where $\ell$ represents an electron or a muon, using $e^{+}e^{-}$ collisions at the $Υ(4S)$ resonance. The data were collected by the Belle II experiment at the SuperKEKB asymmetric-energy collider during 2019-2021, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of $189$ fb$^{-1}$. The measured quantities are the branching fractions (${\mathcal B}$) of the decay channels $B^{+} \to J/ψ(e^{+}e^{-})K^{+}$, $B^{+} \to J/ψ(μ^{+}μ^{-}) K^{+}$, $B^{0} \to J/ψ(e^{+}e^{-}) K^{0}_{S}$, and $B^{0} \to J/ψ(μ^{+}μ^{-})K^{0}_{S}$; the lepton-flavor-dependent isospin asymmetries for the electron [$A_{I}\left(B \to J/ψ(e^{+}e^{-}) K\right)$] and muon [$A_{I}\left(B \to J/ψ(μ^{+} μ^{-}) K\right)$] channels; and the ratios of branching fractions between the muon and electron channels for the charged [$R_{K^{+}}\left(J/ψ\right)$] and neutral kaon [$R_{K^{0}}\left(J/ψ\right)$] case. The measurements are consistent with the world-average values.

hep-ex↗

arXiv2022

Angular analysis of $B^+ \to ρ^+ρ^0$ decays reconstructed in 2019, 2020, and 2021 Belle II data

We report on a Belle II measurement of the branching fraction ($\mathcal{B}$), longitudinal polarization fraction ($f_L$), and CP asymmetry ($\mathcal{A}_{CP}$) of $B^+\to ρ^+ρ^0$ decays. We reconstruct $B^+\to ρ^+(\to π^+π^0(\to γγ))ρ^0(\to π^+π^-)$ decays in a sample of SuperKEKB electron-positron collisions collected by the Belle II experiment in 2019, 2020, and 2021 at the $Υ$(4S) resonance and corresponding to 190 fb$^{-1}$ of integrated luminosity. We fit the distributions of the difference between expected and observed $B$ candidate energy, continuum-suppression discriminant, dipion masses, and decay angles of the selected samples, to determine a signal yield of $345 \pm 31$ events. The signal yields are corrected for efficiencies determined from simulation and control data samples to obtain $\mathcal{B}(B^+ \to ρ^+ρ^0) = [23.2^{+\ 2.2}_{-\ 2.1} (\rm stat) \pm 2.7 (\rm syst)]\times 10^{-6}$, $f_L = 0.943 ^{+\ 0.035}_{-\ 0.033} (\rm stat)\pm 0.027(\rm syst)$, and $\mathcal{A}_{CP}=-0.069 \pm 0.068(\rm stat) \pm 0.060 (\rm syst)$. The results agree with previous measurements. This is the first measurement of $\mathcal{A}_{CP}$ in $B^+\to ρ^+ρ^0$ decays reported by Belle II.

hep-ex↗

arXiv2022

Measurement of the branching fraction of the $B^0 \to K_S^0 π^0 γ$ decay using 190 fb$^{-1}$ of Belle II data

We report the measurement of the branching fraction of the $B^0 \to K_S^0 π^0 γ$ decay in $e^+ e^- \to Υ(4S) \to B \overline{B}$ data recorded by the Belle II experiment at the SuperKEKB asymmetric-energy collider and corresponding to 190 fb$^{-1}$ of integrated luminosity. The signal yield is measured to be $121\pm 29\,\hbox{(stat.)}$, leading to the branching fraction ${\cal B}\left(B^0 \to K_S^0 π^0 γ\right) = \left(7.3 \pm 1.8\,\hbox{(stat.)} \pm 1.0\,\hbox{(syst.)} \right)\times 10^{-6}$, which agrees with the known value.

hep-ex↗

arXiv2022

First decay-time-dependent analysis of $B^{0} \to K_{S}^{0} π^{0}$ at Belle II

We report measurements of the branching fraction ($\mathcal{B}$) and direct $CP$-violating asymmetry ($A_{CP}$) of the charmless decay $B^{0} \to K^0 π^0$ at Belle II. A sample of $e^{+} e^{-}$ collisions, corresponding to $189.8 fb^{-1}$ of integrated luminosity, recorded at the $Υ(4S)$ resonance is used for the first decay-time-dependent analysis of these decays within the experiment. We reconstruct about 135 signal candidates, and measure $\mathcal{B}(B^{0} \to K^{0} π^{0})= [11.0 \pm 1.2 (stat) \pm 1.0 (syst)] \times 10^{-6}$ and $A_{CP} (B^{0} \to K^{0} π^{0})= -0.41_{-0.32}^{+0.30} (stat) \pm 0.09 (syst)$.

hep-ex↗

arXiv2022

The Silicon Vertex Detector of the Belle II Experiment

In 2019 the Belle II experiment started data taking at the asymmetric SuperKEKB collider (KEK, Japan) operating at the Y(4S) resonance. Belle II will search for new physics beyond the Standard Model by collecting an integrated luminosity of 50~ab$^{-1}$. The silicon vertex detector (SVD), consisting of four layers of double-sided silicon strip sensors, is one of the two vertex sub-detectors. The SVD extrapolates the tracks to the inner pixel detector (PXD) with enough precision to correctly identify hits in the PXD belonging to the track. In addition the SVD has standalone tracking capability and utilizes ionization to enhance particle identification in the low momentum region. The SVD is operating reliably and with high efficiency, despite exposure to the harsh beam background of the highest peak-luminosity collider ever built. High signal-to-noise ratio and hit efficiency have been measured, as well as the spatial resolution; all these quantities show excellent stability over time. Data-simulation agreement on cluster properties has recently been improved through a careful tuning of the simulation. The precise hit-time resolution can be exploited to reject out-of-time hits induced by beam background, which will make the SVD more robust against higher levels of background. During the first three years of running, radiation damage effects on strip noise, sensor currents and depletion voltage have been observed, as well as some coupling capacitor failure due to intense radiation bursts. None of these effects cause significant degradation in the detector performance.

physics.ins-det↗