The BaBar silicon vertex tracker, performance and running experience

The Silicon Vertex Tracker (SVT) of the BaBar experiment at the PEP-II asymmetric B factory is a five-layer double-sided, AC-coupled silicon microstrip detector. It represents the crucial element to precisely measure the decay position of B mesons and extract time-dependent CP asymmetries. The SVT architecture is shown and its performance is described, with emphasis on hit resolutions and efficiencies.