The Belle II experiment: status and physics program

The Belle II experiment at the SuperKEKB asymmetric-energy e⁺e^- collider in Japan aims to search for new physics in the flavour transitions in the quark and lepton sectors. The SuperKEKB accelerator will operate at the target instantaneous luminosity of 8*10³⁵ s^-1cm^-2. It requires a substantial upgrade of the detector subsystems which are expected to record 50 ab^-1 of data. Such a huge data sample in clean background environment allows for probing signatures of new physics through suppressed flavour physics reactions and cross checks for deviations from the Standard Model measured at the LHCb experiment. Physics data taking at the Belle II experiment successfully started in April 2018. (author)