Observation of Time Reversal Violation in the B0 Meson System

Although CP violation in the B meson system has been well established by the B factories, there has been no direct observation of time reversal violation. The decays of entangled neutral B mesons into definite flavor states ($B^0$ or ${\bar{B}}^0$), and $J\mathrm{/}\psi K_S^0$ or $c\bar{c}{K}_S^0$ final states (referred to as $B_{+}$ or $B_{-}$), allow comparisons between the probabilities of four pairs of T-conjugated transitions, for example, ${\bar{B}}^0\to B_{-}$ and $B_- \rightarrow \bar{B}^0$, as a function of the time difference between the two B decays. Using 468 million $B\bar{B}$ pairs produced in $\mathrm{{\rm Y}}(4S)$ decays collected by the BABAR detector at SLAC, we measure T-violating parameters in the time evolution of neutral B mesons, yielding $\Delta S_T^+ = -1.37 \pm 0.14 (stat.) \pm 0.06 (syst.)$and$\Delta S_T^- = 1.17 \pm 0.18 (stat.) \pm 0.11 (syst.)$. These nonzero results represent the first direct observation of T violation through the exchange of initial and final states in transitions that can only be connected by a T-symmetry transformation.