Isospin breaking in $K \rightarrow \pi\pi$ decays

We perform a complete analysis of isospin breaking in amplitudes in chiral perturbation theory, including both strong isospin violation ( ) and electromagnetic corrections to next-to-leading order in the low-energy expansion. The unknown chiral couplings are estimated at leading order in the 1/N_c expansion. We study the impact of isospin breaking on CP conserving amplitudes and rescattering phases. In particular, we extract the effective couplings g₈ and g₂₇ from a fit to branching ratios, finding small deviations from the isospin-limit case. The ratio measuring the enhancement is found to decrease from in the isospin limit to in the presence of isospin breaking. We also analyze the effect of isospin violation on the CP violation parameter , finding a destructive interference between three different sources of isospin violation. Within the uncertainties of large-N_c estimates for the low-energy constants, the isospin violating correction for is below 15%.Received: 21 November 2003, Published online: 4 February 2004Work supported in part by IHP-RTN, Contract No. HPRN-CT2002-00311 (EURIDICE) and by Acciones Integradas, Project No. 19/2003 (Austria), HU2002-0044 (MCYT, Spain)     

Exclusive $B \to (K^*, \rho) \gamma$ decays in general two-Higgs-doublet models

By employing the QCD factorization approach, we calculated the next-to-leading order new physics contributions to the branching ratios, CP asymmetries, isospin and U-spin symmetry breaking of the exclusive decays ( ), induced by the charged Higgs penguins in general two-Higgs-doublet models. Within the considered parameter space, we found that (a) the new physics corrections to the observables are generally small in model I and model III-A, moderate in model II, but large in model III-B; (b) from the well measured branching ratios and upper limits, a lower bound of M_H > 200 GeV in model II was obtained, while the allowed range of M_H in model III-B is GeV; these bounds are comparable with those from the inclusive decay; (c) the NLO Wilson coefficient C₇(m_b) in model III-B is positive and disfavored by the measured value of isospin symmetry breaking , but it still cannot be excluded if we take the large errors into account; (d) the CP asymmetry in model III-B has an opposite sign to the one in the standard model (SM), which may be used as a good observable to distinguish the SM from model III-B; (e) the isospin symmetry breaking is less than in the region of preferred by the global fit result, but it can be as large as 20 to in the regions of and . The SM and model III-B predictions for are opposite in sign for small or large values of the CKM angles; (f) the U-spin symmetry breaking in the SM and the general two-Higgs-doublet models is generally small in size: .Received: 9 October 2003, Revised: 11 November 2003, Published online: 18 February 2004     

Isospin breaking in $K \to 3 \pi$ decays III : Bremsstrahlung and fit to experiment

We complete here our work on isospin violation in the system. We first calculate to the same order as we did in papers I and II of this series. This adds the effects of order G ₂₇ p ² (m _u -m _d ) and G ₂₇ p ² e ² to earlier work. We calculate also the lowest order bremsstrahlung contributions, . With these and our earlier results we perform a full fit to all available CP-conserving data in the system including isospin violation effects. We perform these fits under various input assumptions as well as test the factorization and the vector dominance model for the weak NLO low energy constants.Received: 18 January 2005, Published online: 3 March 2005PACS: 13.20.Eb, 12.39.Fe, 14.40.Aq, 11.30.Rd     

Power corrections to the process $\gamma^{*}\gamma \to \pi\pi$ in the running coupling method

Power-suppressed corrections coming from the end-point integration regions in the amplitude of the process at large Q ² and small squared center-of-mass energy W ² are calculated in the QCD hard-scattering approach where the amplitudes factorize in a hard perturbatively calculable part and a generalized distribution amplitude. The running coupling method and the technique of infrared renormalon calculus are applied to obtain Borel resummed expressions for the two main components of the process amplitude. Numerical estimates for these power corrections are presented. They are sizeable when Q ² < 10 GeV².Received: 29 March 2004, Revised: 11 May 2004, Published online: 1 October 2004     

Partial wave analysis of $\bar pp \to \bar \Lambda \Lambda$

A partial wave analysis of PS185 data for is presented. A ³ S ₁ cusp is identified in the inverse process at threshold, using detailed balance to deduce cross sections from . Partial wave amplitudes for ³ P ₀, ³ F ₃, ³ D ₃ and ³ G ₃ exhibit a behaviour very similar to resonances observed in Crystal Barrel data. With this identification, the data then provide evidence for a new I = 0, J ^PC = 1^- resonance with mass MeV, MeV, coupling to both ³ S ₁ and ³ D ₁.Received: 4 June 2004, Published online: 9 July 2004     

Electroweak precision observables in the MSSM with non-minimal flavor violation

The leading corrections to electroweak precision observables in the MSSM with non-minimal flavor violation (NMFV) are calculated and the effects on M _W and are analyzed. The corrections are obtained by evaluating the full one-loop contributions from the third and second generation scalar quarks, including the mixing in the scalar top and charm, as well as in the scalar bottom and strange sector. Furthermore the leading corrections to the mass of the lightest MSSM Higgs-boson, m _h , is obtained. The electroweak one-loop contribution to M _W can amount up to 140 MeV and up to 70 x 10^-5 for , allowing one to set limits on the NMFV parameters. The corrections for m _h are not significant for moderate generation mixing.Received: 1 July 2004, Published online: 13 October 2004     

Spectra and decays of $\pi \pi$ and $\pi K$ atoms

We describe the spectra and decays of and atoms within a non-relativistic effective field theory. The evaluations of the energy shifts and widths are performed at next-to-leading order in isospin symmetry breaking. We provide general formulae for all S-states, and discuss the states with angular momentum one in some detail. The prediction for the lifetime of the atom in its ground state yields s.Received: 9 May 2004, Published online: 23 July 2004     

Size of isospin breaking in charged $K_{\ell 4}$ decay

We evaluate the size of isospin breaking corrections to form factors f and g of the decay process which is actually measured by the extended NA48 setup at CERN. We found that, keeping apart the effect of Coulomb interaction, isospin breaking does not affect the moduli. This is due to the cancellation between corrections of electromagnetic origin and those generated by the difference between up and down quark masses. On the other hand, electromagnetism affects considerably the phases if the infrared divergence is dropped out using a minimal subtraction scheme. Consequently, the greatest care must be taken in the extraction of phase shifts from experiment.Received: 27 December 2004, Revised: 24 January 2005, Published online: 3 March 2005     

Dynamical selection rules from $p \bar p$ annihilation at restin three meson final states

The hadronic annihilation branching-ratios in quasi-two-body final states have been obtained from the observation of the reactions , at rest in hydrogen targets at different densities. The enhancement or suppression of specific hadronic channels connected to dynamical selection rules is observed in the production of different resonances both in protonium S and P-waves, systematically investigated for the first time. Besides the well known and enhancement from ³S₁ and ¹S₀ partial waves, the dominance of one isospin source in production, well established from S-waves, is confirmed also in P-waves (¹S₀, I = 0; ³S₁, I = 1; ¹P₁, I = 0; ³P₁, I = 0; ³P₂, I = 1). In addition, the experimental data clearly show a strong suppression of and final states from P-wave which has a remarkable coincidence with pattern production.Received: 4 February 2004, Published online: 5 May 2004     

An analysis of $B \to \eta' K$ decays using a global fit in QCD factorization

In the framework of QCD factorization, we study decays. In order to more reliably determine the phenomenological parameters X _H and X _A arising from end-point divergences in the hard spectator scattering and weak annihilation contributions, we use the global analysis for twelve and VP decay modes, such as , , , , et cetera, but excluding the modes whose (dominant) internal quark-level process is . Based on the global analysis, we critically investigate possible magnitudes of X _H,A and find that both large and small X _H,A terms are allowed by the global fit. In the case of the large X _H,A effects, the standard model (SM) prediction of the branching ratios (BRs) for is large and well consistent with the experimental results. In contrast, in the case of the small X _H,A effects, the SM prediction for these BRs is smaller than the experimental data. Motivated by the recent Belle measurement of through , if we take into account possible new physics effects on the quark-level process , we can explicitly show that these large BRs can be understood even in the small X _H,A case. Specifically, we present two new physics scenarios: R-parity violating SUSY and R-parity conserving SUSY.Received: 28 April 2004, Revised: 12 July 2004, Published online: 7 September 2004     

Waiting for the discovery of $B^0_d\to K^0\bar K^0$

The CP asymmetries of the decay , which originates from flavor-changing neutral-current processes, and its CP-averaged branching ratio BR offer interesting avenues to explore flavor physics. We show that we may characterize this channel, within the standard model, in a theoretically clean manner through a surface in observable space. In order to extract the relevant information from BR , further information is required, which is provided by the system and the SU(3) flavor symmetry, where we include the leading factorizable SU(3)-breaking corrections and discuss how experimental insights into non-factorizable effects can be obtained. We point out that the standard model implies a lower bound for BR , which is very close to its current experimental upper bound, thereby suggesting that this decay should soon be observed. Moreover, we explore the implications for color suppression in the system, and convert the data for these modes in a peculiar standard-model pattern for the CP-violating observables.Received: 3 August 2004, Published online: 15 November 2004     

An analysis of the time-dependent CP asymmetryin $B \to \pi \pi$ decays in the standard model

Measurements of the time-dependent CP-asymmetry in the decay and its charge conjugate by the BELLE and BABAR collaborations currently yield and , characterizing the direct and mixing-induced CP-asymmetries, respectively. We study the implication of these measurements on the CKM phenomenology taking into account the available information in the quark mixing sector. Our analysis leads to the results that the ratio |P _c /T _c | involving the QCD-penguin and tree amplitudes and the related strong phase difference in the decays are quite substantial. Using the isospin symmetry to constrain |P _c /T _c | and , where parameterizes the penguin-induced contribution, we present a fit of the current data including the measurements of and . Our best-fits yield , , , , and . At 68% C.L., the ranges are , , , and . Currently en vogue dynamical approaches to estimate the hadronic matrix elements in decays do not provide a good fit of the current data.Received: 5 April 2004, Published online: 14 July 2004A.Ya. Parkhomenko: On leave of absence from Department of Theoretical Physics, Yaroslavl State University, Sovietskaya 14, 150000 Yaroslavl, Russia.     

The process $\gamma(^*) + p \to \eta_c + X$: a test for the perturbative QCD odderon

The rates of inclusive photo- and electroproduction of the meson: are calculated in the triple Regge region, integrated over the diffractive mass X. For the Regge exchanges we use the hard pomeron and odderon, both being calculated in the framework of perturbative QCD. The integrated cross section depends upon the coupling of the BFKL pomeron to two C = -1 odderons, and it is found to be of the order of 60 pb for photoproduction and 1.5 pb at Q² = 25 GeV².Received: 16 April 2003, Published online: 25 February 2004     

CP-sensitive observables in e^ + e^-\to\tilde\chi^0_i \tilde\chi^0_j and neutralino decay into the Z boson

We study CP-sensitive observables in the neutralino production and the subsequent two-body decays of the neutralino and of the Z boson . We identify the CP-odd elements of the Z boson density matrix and propose CP-sensitive triple-product asymmetries. We calculate these observables and the cross sections in the minimal supersymmetric standard model with complex parameters and M ₁ for an e ⁺ e ^- linear collider with GeV and longitudinally polarized beams. We show that the asymmetries can reach for and for and discuss the feasibility of measuring these asymmetries.Received: 4 February 2004, Revised: 17 May 2004, Published online: 2 July 2004     

Moments of semileptonic B decay distributionsin the 1/m b expansion

We report the OPE-based predictions for a number of lepton energy and hadronic mass moments in the inclusive semileptonic decays with a lower cut on the charged lepton energy. We rely on the direct OPE approach where no expansion in the charm mass is employed and the theoretical input is a limited set of underlying OPE parameters including m_b and m_c. A Wilsonian treatment with a hard cutoff is applied using running low-scale masses and a kinetic expectation value . This leaves for perturbative corrections only genuinely short-distance effects and makes them numerically small. Predictions are also given for the modified hadronic moments of the kinematic variable which is a combination of M_X² and E_X. The measurement of such moments would allow a more reliable extraction to be made of higher-order non-perturbative heavy quark parameters from experiment.Received: 13 January 2004, Published online: 3 March 2004N. Uraltsev: On leave of absence from St. Petersburg Nuclear Physics Institute, Gatchina, St. Petersburg 188300, Russia.     

Near-threshold production of a0(980)-mesons in the reaction \rm {pp \rightarrow d K^ + \bar{K^0}}

Using an effective Lagrangian approach as well as the Quark-Gluon Strings Model, we analyze near-threshold production of a ₀(980)-mesons in the reaction as well as the background of non-resonant -pair production. We argue that the reaction at an energy release MeV is dominated by the intermediate production of the a ₀(980)-resonance. At larger energies the non-resonant -pair production --where the kaons are produced in a relative P-wave-- becomes important. The effects of final-state interactions are evaluated in a unitarized scattering length approach and found to be in the order of a 20% suppression close to threshold. Thus, in present experiments at the Cooler Synchrotron COSY-Jülich for MeV the a ₀ ⁺ signal can reliably be separated from the non-resonant background.Received: 26 February 2004, Published online: 21 September 2004PACS: 25.10. + s Nuclear reactions involving few-nucleon systems - 13.75.-n Hadron-induced low- and intermediate-energy reactions and scattering (energy GeV)     

A flavor symmetry for quasi-degenerate neutrinos: L_\mu - L_\tau

We consider the flavor symmetry for the neutrino mass matrix. The most general neutrino mass matrix conserving predicts quasi-degenerate neutrino masses with one maximal and two zero mixing angles. The presence of can also be motivated by the near-bimaximal form of the neutrino mixing matrix. Furthermore, it is a special case of symmetric mass matrices. Breaking the flavor symmetry by adding a small flavor-blind term to the neutrino mass matrix and/or by applying radiative corrections is shown to reproduce the observed neutrino oscillation phenomenology. Both the normal and inverted mass ordering can be accommodated within this scheme. Moderate cancellation for neutrinoless double beta decay is expected. The observables |U _e3|² and are proportional to the inverse of the fourth power of the common neutrino mass scale. We comment on whether the atmospheric neutrino mixing is expected to lie above or below . We finally present a model based on the see-saw mechanism which generates a light neutrino mass matrix with an (approximate) flavor symmetry. This is a minimal model with just one standard Higgs doublet and three heavy right-handed neutrinos. It needs only small values for the soft breaking terms to reproduce the phenomenological viable mass textures analyzed.Received: 18 November 2004, Revised: 13 December 2004, Published online: 15 February 2005     

The role of strange sea quarks in chiral extrapolations on the lattice

Since the strange quark has a light mass of order , fluctuations of sea pairs may play a special role in the low-energy dynamics of QCD by inducing significantly different patterns of chiral symmetry breaking in the chiral limits N _f = 2 (m _u = m _d = 0, m _s physical) and N _f = 3 (m _u = m _d = m _s = 0). This effect of vacuum fluctuations of pairs is related to the violation of the Zweig rule in the scalar sector, described through the two O(p ⁴) low-energy constants L ₄ and L ₆ of the three-flavour strong chiral lagrangian. In the case of significant vacuum fluctuations, three-flavour chiral expansions might exhibit numerical competition between leading- and next-to-leading-order terms according to the chiral counting, and chiral extrapolations should be handled with special care. We investigate the impact of the fluctuations of pairs on chiral extrapolations in the case of lattice simulations with three dynamical flavours in the isospin limit. Information on the size of the vacuum fluctuations can be obtained from the dependence of the masses and decay constants of pions and kaons on the light quark masses. Even in the case of large fluctuations, corrections due to the finite size of spatial dimensions can be kept under control for large enough boxes ( fm).Received: 20 October 2004, Revised: 28 December 2004, Published online: 9 February 2005Laboratoire de Physique Théorique: LPT is an Unité Mixte de Recherche du CNRS et de lUniversité Paris-Sud 11 (UMR 8627).     

Masses and couplings of vector mesonsfrom the pion electromagnetic,weak, and $\pi\gamma$ transition form factors

We analyze the pion electromagnetic, charged-current, and transition form factors at timelike momentum transfers q, GeV², using a dispersion approach. We discuss in detail the propagator matrix of the photon-vector meson system and define certain reduced amplitudes, or vertex functions, describing the coupling of this system to final states. We then apply the derived analytic expressions to the analysis of the recent , , and data. We find the reduced amplitudes for the coupling of the photon and vector mesons to two pseudoscalars to be constant, independent of s, in the range considered, indicating a freezing of the amplitudes for GeV. The fit to the form factor data leads to the following values of the Breit-Wigner resonance masses MeV, MeV and MeV, where the errors are only statistical.Received: 8 December 2003, Published online: 23 March 2004T. Paulus: Now at Philips     

Gluonic penguin contribution to B \rightarrow \pi \pi decays

We use the light-cone sum rule technique to calculate the contribution of the gluonic penguin operator O _8g to the decay of the B-meson to two pions. Leading-order perturbative and non-perturbative corrections are included, corresponding to hard and soft exchanged gluons, respectively. While the overall contribution of this operator to the decay is small as expected before, we find that the so-called soft-gluon part of this contribution is of the order of the hard-gluon one. This implies that the inclusion of soft gluons in the calculation of matrix elements may be important.Received: 30 September 2002, Published online: 22 October 2003PACS: 13.25.Hw Hadronic decays of mesons: Decays of bottom mesons - 11.55.Hx Sum rules