Novel detection methods based on Cherenkov radiation

In the next decade, the research in elementary particle physics will concentrate on the investigation of the origin of electro-weak symmetry breaking and the search for extensions of the Standard Model (SM), popularly known as New Physics. In addition to searches for new phenomena at the LHC, precision measurements of rare processes in decays of heavy quarks and leptons at Super B factories will have an important complementary role. For this next generation of experiments, new methods for particle identification are needed, all based on the detection of Cherenkov radiation. In the proposed project, we will investigate new particle identification methods to be employed in one of the super B factory projects, Belle II at the KEK laboratory in Tsukuba, Japan.

The Belle II experiment in which we have employed the methods developed in the present project, is an outstanding scientific apparatus at the frontier of scientific and technological capabilities. The aim of Belle II is to deepen our understanding of elementary constituents of matter and the forces acting between them. The results of the proposed project have brought progress and new solutions in the field of detection methods, and have enabled the upgrading of a very successful experiment in the search for new physics phenomena. The discovery of new particles, such as super-symmetric partners of the known elementary particles, would dramatically change our understanding of the world around us, and of the way it developed. The results of the research within this project will help in searching for answers to the basic questions of particle physics and cosmology, specifically to the question of why there is at all matter in the universe, which did not get annihilated with antimatter. The results will contribute to a decisive advancement and to new solutions in detector techniques.