A factory for b quarks

8 April 1998

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This diagram shows an aerial view of a new particle collider nearing completion at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC) in the US. The PEP-II Asymmetric B Factory consists of two particle storage rings, one on top of the other, which will store and collide high-intensity beams of electrons and positrons (antielectrons). It is designed to produce vast numbers of particles containing b-quarks - about 100 million a year. The decays of these quarks could hold clues about the domination of matter over antimatter in the Universe. The decays of particles containing the b-quarks will be captured in a detector called BaBar. The collider is due for completion in October 1998, and the BaBar detector should record its first data in January 1999.

Credit: Stanford Linear Accelerator Center
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