Performance of the Belle II Silicon Vertex Detector

The Belle II experiment at the SuperKEKB collider of KEK (Japan) started recording physics data in spring 2019 with all its subdetectors installed and with the goal of accumulating 50ab−1 of e+e− collision events at the unprecedented instantaneous luminosity of 8×1035cm−2s−1, about 40 times larger than its predecessor. The Belle II vertex detector plays a crucial role in the broad Belle II physics program, especially for time-dependent CP measurements. It consists of two layers of DEPFET-based pixels and four layers of double-sided silicon strip detectors (SVD). The experience gained from the first period of SVD operation can be summarized as smooth and reliable running of the detector, with high stability of noise levels and calibration parameters obtained from local calibration runs. No major problem has been experienced. The detector even survived a few serious radiation accidents in which the beam was lost due to failure in the machine focusing quadrupoles without any notable damage. The SVD performance were carefully studied with these first physics data. The SVD showed excellent hit and tracking efficiency. Moreover, cluster energy and signal to noise ratio as well as the hit time and spatial resolutions measured on data showed a fair agreement with the expected performance. •Belle II silicon vertex detector operated during the first year of the experiment.•All sensors worked with stable and excellent hit efficiencies above 99 %.•Signal-to-noise ratios between 15 and 30, cluster time resolution better than 3 ns.•First effects of irradiation visible in leakage currents.