Observation of time-dependent $CP$ violation and measurement of the branching fraction of $B^0 \to J/ψπ^0$ decays

We present a measurement of the branching fraction and time-dependent charge-parity (CP) decay-rate asymmetries in B0→J/ψπ0 decays. The data sample was collected with the Belle II detector at the SuperKEKB asymmetric e+e- collider in 2019-2022 and contains (387±6)×106 BB¯ meson pairs from ϒ(4S) decays. We reconstruct 392±24 signal decays and fit the CP parameters from the distribution of the proper-decay-time difference of the two B mesons. We measure the branching fraction to be (B0→J/ψπ0)=(2.00±0.12±0.09)×10-5 and the direct and mixing-induced CP asymmetries to be CCP=0.13±0.12±0.03 and SCP=-0.88±0.17±0.03, respectively, where the first uncertainties are statistical and the second are systematic. We observe mixing-induced CP violation with a significance of 5.0 standard deviations for the first time in this mode.