Physics Impact and Status of the R&D for the Belle II Vertex Detector Upgrade

Belle II is an experiment operating at the intensity frontier, with a vast physics program aimed at improving our knowledge of many fundamental quantities and at searching for signals of physics beyond the standard model. Data taking started in 2019 and the performance of the detector matched the expectations, allowing the experiment to have much better sensitivity than its predecessors BaBar and Belle. However, the accelerator background conditions proved to be dramatically more challenging than anticipated, at the level that some of the Belle II components will see a strong degradation of their performance once the accelerator will reach the design luminosity. The sensitivity of the experiment will be seriously affected. In this contribution we will review the status of data taking, our projections for the evolution of the machine-related backgrounds, and our plans for an extensive detector upgrade, to be carried out around the year 2032. We will focus in particular on the VTX, the proposed new silicon vertex tracker.