Overview of the BTeV experiment

BTeV is a two-arm forward spectrometer, centered on a dipole moment. Since the b production cross-section peaks sharply at small angles, and there is a large bb̄ spatial correlation, the forward geometry offers a large acceptance in a small fraction of the solid angle. In the forward direction, produced B mesons experience a high momentum boost. At higher B momentum, the smaller multiple scattering effects and improved decay-time resolution leads to better background rejection via the decay-length significance method. In the forward region, the radiation dose and particle multiplicities are higher than in the central region. The BTeV detector components and design principles are outlined.