Study of the Sensitivity to Flavour-Specific Asymmetries with the LHCb Detector

LHCb is a future detector which will take data at the CERN Large Hadron Collider proton-proton collider. It is optimised for B-physics and will make precision measurements of CP violation parameters and flavour mixing. Measurements of time-dependent asymmetries and decay rates require excellent particle identification which is achieved with the two RICH detectors in conjunction with the tracking system. In this thesis, a tuning of the Pythia multiple interaction parameter, p_tMin, to central multiplicity data measured at CDF and DZero is presented. An extrapolation to LHC energies gives p^LHC_tMin = 3.36 +/- 0.16. The optical properties of the prototype beryllium spherical mirror for RICH 1 are measured. The mirror has a radius of curvature of 2675 +/- 1 mm and a spot diameter of 3.33 +/- 0.02 mm. Limitations of the measurement are discussed and factors affecting the quality of the optical surface are identified. A measurement of the CP-violating parameter, a_fs, from the time-dependent charge asymmetry in flavour specific decays is introduced. The measurement allows the simultaneous determination of two of the three asymmetries, a_fs, the Bs0 production asymmetry and the detection asymmetry assuming one is measured externally. Two channels are considered, Bs0 to Ds mu nu_mu and Bs to Ds pi. The sensitivity to the flavour-specific asymmetries is explored with a fast Monte Carlo. For 2 fb^-1 of LHCb data, the statistical pr ecision on a_fs is found to be ~ 2x10^-3 in the semileptonic channel. This represents a factor of ten improvement on the current direct measurement.