BaBar silicon vertex tracker

A silicon-strip detector tracking system is being constructed for the BaBar experiment at the SLAC B-Factory. The background environment at the B-Factory and the demands imposed by the objective of studying CP violation in the B-meson system lead to a set of requirements and a design that are substantially different from those of existing silicon-strip systems. Those requirements are explained, and a design is presented which is believed to robustly satisfy all of them.