This first open access volume of the handbook series contains articles on the standard model of particle physics, both from the theoretical and experimental perspective. It also covers related topics, such as heavy-ion physics, neutrino physics and searches for new physics beyond the standard model. A joint CERN-Springer initiative, the "Particle Physics Reference Library" provides revised and updated contributions based on previously published material in the well-known Landolt-Boernstein series on particle physics, accelerators and detectors (volumes 21A, B1,B2,C), which took stock of the field approximately one decade ago. Central to this new initiative is publication under full open access

This thesis describes a high-quality, high-precision method for the data analysis of an interesting elementary particle reaction. The data was collected at the Japanese B-meson factory KEKB with the Belle detector, one of the most successful large-scale experiments worldwide. CP violation is a subtle quantum effect that makes the world look different when simultaneously left and right and matter and antimatter are exchanged. This being a prerequisite for our own world to have developed from the big bang, there are only a few experimental indications of such effects, and their detection requires very intricate techniques. The discovery of CP violation in B meson decays garnered Kobayashi and Maskawa, who had predicted these findings as early as 1973, the 2008 Nobel prize in physics. This thesis describes in great detail what are by far the best measurements of branching ratios and CP violation parameters in two special reactions with two charm mesons in the final state. It presents an in-depth but accessible overview of the theory, phenomenology, experimental setup, data collection, Monte Carlo simulations, (blind) statistical data analysis, and systematic uncertainty studies.

This book highlights two essential analyses of data collected during the LHCb experiment, based on the Large Hadron Collider at CERN. The first comprises the first observation and studies of matter-antimatter asymmetries in two three-body b-baryon decays, paving the way for more precise measurements of the relatively unknown decay properties of b-baryon decays. The second is an analysis of a charged B meson decay to three charged pions, where previously large matter-antimatter asymmetries were observed in a model-independent analysis. Here a model of the decay amplitude is constructed using the unitarity-conserving ‘K-matrix’ model for the scalar contributions, so as to gain an understanding of how the previously observed matter-antimatter asymmetries arise; further, the model’s construction yields the most precise and comprehensive study of this decay mode to date.