Charm physics is an important component of the field of flavor physics. This field is currently in a renaissance with significant results coming from measurements at a number of experimental facilities worldwide, including B-factories, Hadron Colliders, and Charm factories. An important objective in flavor physics is the determination of all of the elements of the Cabibbo Kobayashi Maskawa (CKM) mixing matrix, which is a matrix of complex numbers that relates the electroweak interactions of the six known flavors (or types) of quarks. The Wayne State University group has made significant contributions to the study of the mixing of neutral charm D mesons at CLEO-c. Notable among their measurements is the extraction of an important parameter known as the strong phase in decays of neutral D mesons into final states containing charged Kaons and Pions. This measurement has impact on the determination of one of the CKM mixing angles called gamma. The group plans to continue the study of D decays with BELLE-II at KEK in Japan and is exploring a new test of CP violation in D decays. Additionally at BELLE-II, the group intends to study rare decays of D mesons, looking for 4 quark content, and building upon earlier expertise gained at CLEO-c. The broader impacts efforts of the group are considerable through REU/RET programs, reaching students from underrepresented groups who participate directly in the research program.
During the last year this group advanced substantially the production of amplifier boards for the Hadronic Calorimeter of Belle II. The laboratory is fully operational and producing several boards a day. A shipment of 100 boards was sent out on June 5, 2014. The production facility of the Diode Radiation Detectors is complete and production of the parts has started. These will go into SuperKEKB on day 1 (about June 2015) to help map radiation fluxes in the Interaction Region. The Large Angle Beamstrahlung Monitor has been completed with Japanese funding. Final calibration of the devices is ongoing, with a shipment to KEK date of September 2014. This device, too will be installed ahead of Belle II to help study and optimize the Beam Optics. Two students have graduated on this device, Ryan Gillard in March 2014 (he is now a Research Scientist at Improvement Path Systems, Sterling Heights, MI) and Hussein Farhat in July 2014. A precision analysi of three rare semileptonic decays of the Ds meson has cleared Belle's General Meeting. A review committee is being set up. Sudeshna Ganguly will graduate in December 2014 on this analysis. One of the results decreases the error of the Ds -> Ks l nu world average by a factor of two. Expected Physical Review D submission in the Fall.
