The authors present BABAR experiment studies to observe CP violation in the two-body decays ({pi}K and {pi}{pi}) and the quasi two-body decays ({rho}K and {rho}{pi}) of B mesons. The results are obtained from data samples of about 89(123) million {Upsilon}(4S) {yields} B{bar B} decays collected between 1999 and 2002(2003) with the BABAR detector at the PEP-II asymmetric-energy B Factory at SLAC.

Results of recent searches for new physics in CP violation in charm decays from the BABAR experiment are presented. These results include a measurement of D0 - anti D0 mixing and searches for CP violation in two-body D0 decays, a search for CP violation in the charm decays D" 2!KS0K " and D s" 2!KS0K", KS0[pi]", and a search for direct CP violation in the singly-Cabibbo suppressed D" 2!K+K-[pi]"decays. These studies are based on the fi nal dataset collected by BABAR at the PEP-II B factory at SLAC in the period 1999-2008. No evidence of CP violation is found in these charm decays. The measured mixing parameter yCP = [0.72 " 0.18(stat) " 0.12(syst)]% excludes the no-mixing null hypothesis with a signifi cance of 3.3[sigma].

The phenomenon of CP-violation in weak interactions, discovered in 1964 in decays of neutral kaons, receives a simple and elegant explanation in the Standard Model with three generations of quarks. Indeed, in this model the common source of CP-asymmetry phenomena is represented by a simple complex phase in the unitary matrix (the Cabibbo-Kobayashi-Maskawa matrix) describing the charged weak couplings of the quarks. This simple scheme has never received an accurate validation, because the phenomenological parameters determined from measurements of CP-violation in kaons decays are related to the fundamental parameters of the theory in a complex way, sensitive to large theoretical uncertainties. On the contrary, decays of neutral B mesons like B{sup 0} {yields} J/{psi} K{sub S}{sup 0} represent a unique laboratory to test the predictions of the theory because they are expected to show significant CP-violation effects, the magnitude of which is cleanly related to the Standard Model parameters. Thus experimental facilities have been built with the purpose of performing extensive studies of B decays. The BABAR experiment is operating at one of these facilities, at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center. It is collecting data at the PEP-II asymmetric e{sup +}e{sup -} collider (E{sub e{sup -}} = 9.0 GeV; E{sub e{sup +}} = 3.1 GeV), a high-luminosity accelerator machine (L = 3 x 10{sup 33} cm{sup -2}s{sup -1}). The center-of-mass energy (10.58 GeV) of the e{sup +}e{sup -} system at PEP-II allows resonant production of the {Upsilon}(4S), a b{bar b} bound state, which decays almost exclusively in a B{sup 0}{bar B}{sup 0} or a B{sup +}B{sup -} pair. A high-acceptance detector, projected and built by a wide international collaboration, detects and characterizes the decay products of the B mesons. From the analysis of the data collected during the first two years of operation, the BABAR collaboration has established CP-violation in decays of neutral B mesons at the 4.1{sigma} level. Besides the primary goal of CP-violation studies, the high luminosity of PEP-II, coupled with the high acceptance of the BABAR detector, allows competitive studies of the properties of a wide set of B decay modes. In particular, measurements of non-leptonic decays are extremely useful to understand the dynamics of the non-perturbative strong interactions involved in these processes. In this thesis a study of the non-leptonic decay mode B{sup {+-}} {yields} J/{psi}{pi}{sup {+-}} is presented.

During the first year of data taking, the 1999-2000 run, the BABAR detector at the SLAC PEP-II asymmetric collider has collected an integrated luminosity of 20.7 fb[sup -1] corresponding to 22.7 million B[bar B] pairs at the[Upsilon](4S) resonance. Using this data, we present the measurement of sin2[beta] based on samples of B[sup 0][yields] J/[psi] K[sub S][sup 0], B[sup 0][yields][psi](2S) K[sub S][sup 0] and B[sup 0][yields] J/[psi] K[sub L][sup 0] L decays. Our measured value is sin2[beta]= 0.34[+-] 0.20 (stat)[+-] 0.05 (syst). In addition we report on the measurement of branching fractions for exclusive B decays to charmonium final states, measurements of charged and neutral B meson lifetimes and also the B[sup 0][bar B][sup 0] oscillation frequency.

Contents:CP Phenomenology:Introduction to CP Violation (C Jarlskog)CP-Violation in the K0-K0-System (K Kleinknecht)The Quark Mixing Matrix, Charm Decays and B Decays (S Stone)The Question of CP Noninvariance — As Seen through the Eyes of Neutral Beauty (I I Bigi et al.)In Search of CP Noninvariance in Heavy Quark Systems (L-L Chau)CP Violation at High Energy e+e- Colliders (J Bernabéu & M B Gavela)CP Violation in the Standard Model with Four Families (A Datta & E A Paschos)CP Effects When Neutrinos are their Own Antiparticles (B Kayser)On Spontaneous CP Violation Triggered by Scalar Bosons (I I Bigi & A I Sanda)CP Violation and Left-Right Symmetry (R N Mohapatra)CP Violation and Supersymmetry (R N Mohapatra)Electric Dipole Moments (S M Barr & W H Marciano)Special Topics: The Strong CP Problem (R D Peccei)CP Violation and Cosmology (P Langacker)Nonleptonic Interactions:The 1/N Approach to Nonleptonic Weak Interactions (A J Buras)Chiral Perturbation Theory Approach to Weak Amplitudes (E de Rafael)What We Learnt from Weak Decays of Heavy Quarks (B Stech)Weak Hamiltonian on the Lattice (G Martinelli) Readership: High energy physicists. Keywords:CP Violation;Quark Mixing Matrix;Charm Decays;B Decays;Nonleptic Interactions;Heavy QuarksReview: “Similar material is most often available in journals, but the book accomplishes a valuable service in drawing it together … the one that will probably have the greatest utility and longest lifespan is the survey of B meson physics by I Bigi, V Khoze, N Uraltsev and A Sanda … Bigi et al. here provide the most thorough and readable account of the issues that I know of. I have seen no review comparable to the excellent summary of electric dipole moments by S Barr and W Marciano … the volume offers a generally readable entry into this field for a reader who has a basic background in particle physics.” John F Donoghue Science “… this book performs a very useful service for anyone active or interested in CP violation, both as a source of primary information and as a work of reference.” K J Peach J Phys. G: Nucl. Part. Phys.