Carlos Mariñas, a researcher at the Corpuscular Physics Institute (IFIC, CSIC-UV), has been appointed as the new president of the Belle II technical committee –a particle physics experiment designed to study the properties of the so-called B meson– and coordinator of future vertex and trace detector improvements.

The Belle II detector is a particle physics experiment designed to study the properties of the so-called B meson, which is a type of heavy particle made up of beauty or b-type quarks. Belle II operates in association with the SuperKEKB particle accelerator at KEK’s Japanese accelerator complex in Tsukuba, near Tokyo, Japan.

Since its launch in 2018, the SuperKEKB accelerator has progressively improved its performance and currently holds the world record for instantaneous brightness. This high rate of collisions will allow the recording of a large amount of data for the detailed study of rare, forbidden or highly suppressed processes in the standard model of particle physics and improve the precision of certain known observables.

Currently, the accelerator is carrying out a scheduled technical shutdown (Long Shutdown 1) that will be used to add a second layer of sensors to the pixel detector and part of the photosensors damaged by the high levels of radiation in which said experiment operates will be replaced.

Around the year 2027 (Long Shutdown 2), it is planned to carry out a remodelling of the focusing magnets and of the interaction region and the detectors that are close to the point of impact will be renewed. The collaboration is currently finalising the conceptual design of said intervention.

Mariñas will be in charge of ensuring that all the subdetectors are at full capacity during the accelerator’s operation time, of making the transition to a more robust data acquisition system and of guaranteeing efficient and stable data collection. He will finally coordinate the planning of the design and development of the technologies that will be used for the improvement of the semiconductor and gas detectors planned for the year 2027.

Belle II is a collaboration involving 1,152 researchers from 127 international institutes. IFIC has been a member of this experiment for more than a decade and has participated in the development, construction and commissioning of the pixel detector.

With a degree from the University of Santiago de Compostela and a Ph.D. in Physical Sciences from the University of Valencia, Mariñas worked for almost a decade at the Silicon Laboratory of the University of Bonn (Germany). During that stage he directed the Belle II pixel instrumentation group, as well as being deputy coordinator of the experiment’s data collection and made long stays in Japan.

In 2019 he returned to IFIC with a GenT distinguished researcher contract and is currently a Ramón y Cajal scientist at the Experimental Unit. Carlos Mariñas takes over from the former president, Ichiro Adachi, and will have Katsuro Nakamura as deputy director, both belonging to the Japanese laboratory KEK.

“This appointment is an acknowledgment of the good work of the IFIC over all these years and reinforces the experiment’s commitment to cutting-edge R&D in the field of particle physics instrumentation carried out at our institute. It will be an honour to serve the experiment in the coming years and I thank my colleagues for the trust placed in me”, says Mariñas.