Rare semileptonic decays of heavy mesons in the heavy quark limit

We study the branching ratios of D+→D0e+ν,DS+→D0e+ν,BS0→B+e-ν,DS+→D+e-e+ and BS0→B0e-e+ rare semileptonic decay processes,which are induced by decays of light quarks,the heavy quarks remain unchanged.The branching ratios of these decay processes are estimated in the heavy quark limit and with SU(3) flavor symmetry.We find that the decay rates are very tiny in the framework of the Standard Model.We also estimate the sensitivities of the measurements of these rare decays at the future experiments,such as BES-Ⅲ,super-B and LHC-b.Observations of these decays may shed some light on new physics beyond the standard model.     

Flavour-spin symmetry and weak decays of heavy hadrons

Recent developments in the theory of heavy quarks have increased the prospects for the study of non-perturbative QCD in the weak decays of heavy mesons and baryons and for the reliable determination of some of the parameters of the Standard Model. It has been made possible due to the discovery of a spin-flavour symmetry for heavy quarks which arises in QCD when quark mass is taken to infinity. Certain properties in hadrons containing a heavy quark then become independent of its mass and spin. These ideas have tremendous impact on the phenemenology of heavy hadrons. In particular, these symmetries give rise to restrictive relations among weak decay amplitudes and reduce the number of independent form factors. By relating various matrix elements and fixing normalization of some matrix elements, the heavy quark symmetry has enhanced our predictive ability, allowing in some cases to bypass the difficulties of understanding hadronic structure.     

Top quark properties

Since the top quark was discovered at Tevatron in 1995, many top quark properties have been measured. However, the top quark is still interesting due to unique features which originate from the extremely heavy mass, and providing various test grounds on the Standard Model as well as searches for a new physics. Though the measurements of the top quark had been performed only at Tevatron so far, LHC is now ready for measurements with more top quarks than Tevatron. In this article, recent measurements of top quark properties from Tevatron (CDF and D?) as well as LHC (ATLAS and CMS) are presented.     

Status and prospects of top-quark physics

The top quark is the heaviest elementary particle observed to date. Its large mass of about 173 GeV/c² makes the top quark act differently than other elementary fermions, as it decays before it hadronises, passing its spin information on to its decay products. In addition, the top quark plays an important role in higher order loop corrections to standard model processes, which makes the top-quark mass a crucial parameter for precision tests of the electroweak theory. The top quark is also a powerful probe for new phenomena beyond the standard model.During the time of discovery at the Tevatron in 1995 only a few properties of the top quark could be measured. In recent years, since the start of Tevatron Run II, the field of top-quark physics has changed and entered a precision era. This report summarises the latest measurements and studies of top-quark properties and gives prospects for future measurements at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC).     

Baryogenesis at the weak phase transition

The weak phase transition of the hot big bang can produce quarks, leptons and weak bosons which are out of thermal equilibrium. In a simple extension of the standard model it is shown that the reactions following top quark decays can generate the cosmological baryon asymmetry. The top quark mass must be close to 80 GeV and the Higgs boson must be lighter than 1 GeV. This baryogenesis mechanism can be directly tested at e⁺e⁻ and hadron collider by searching for spectacular events containing six or more bottom quarks and a violation of baryon number at the decay vertex of a long lived neutral particle.     

Study of ATLAS sensitivity to FCNC top decays

The ATLAS experiment sensitivity to top quark flavour changing neutral current (FCNC) decays was studied at LHC using tt̄ events. While one of the top quarks is expected to follow the dominant Standard Model decay t→bW, the other decays through a FCNC channel, i.e. t→Zu(c), t→γu(c) or t→gu(c). Different types of analyses, applied to each FCNC decay mode, were compared. The FCNC branching ratio sensitivity (assuming a 5σ signal significance) and 95% confidence level limits on the branching ratios (in the hypothesis of signal absence) were obtained.     

Precision measurements in nuclear beta decay

Precision measurements in nuclear beta decay provide sensitive means to determine the fundamental coupling of charged fermions to weak bosons and to test discrete symmetries in the weak interaction. The main motivation of such measurements is to find deviations from Standard Model predictions as possible indications of new physics. I focus here on two topics related to precision measurements in beta decay, namely: (i) the determination of the V _ud element of the Cabibbo-Kobayashi-Maskawa quark mixing matrix from nuclear mirror transitions and (ii) selected measurements of time reversal violating correlations in nuclear and neutron decays. These topics complement those presented in other contributions to this conference.     

Azimuthal angular dependence of decay lepton in e^+ e^- \to t \bar{t}

We discuss top quark production and its subsequent decay as used for searching new physics at lepton colliders. The angular dependence of the decay leptons is calculated including both QCD corrections and anomalous couplings. The off-diagonal spin basis for the top and anti-top quarks is shown to be useful to probe the anomalous couplings. Received: 11 August 2000 / Published online: 27 November 2000     

top夸克物理现状及展望

扼要地评述了top夸克物理的现状,并对未来高能加速器的各种有关实验所预期的结果作了简要归纳.     

Bounds on radii and anomalous magnetic dipole moments of quarks and leptons from LEP,SLC and HERA

Leptons, quarks and gauge bosons are assumed to be pointlike particles in the Standard Model. Stringent bounds on the radii of quarks and leptons and their weak anomalous magnetic moments can be derived from the high-precision measurements at LEP and SLC. We find a model-independent bound ofR?10^?17 cm for quark and lepton radii. HERA will provide complementary information on the electromagnetic static properties of the quarks and the parameters of the charged quark currents.     

Monte Carlo simulation of hard radiation in decays in beyond the standard model physics in Herwig++

We use the POWHEG formalism in the Herwig++ event generator to match QCD real-emission matrix elements with the parton shower for a range of decays relevant to Beyond the Standard Model physics searches. Applying this correction affects the shapes of experimental observables and so changes the number of events passing selection criteria. To validate this approach, we study the impact of the correction on Standard Model top quark decays. We then illustrate the effect of the correction on Beyond the Standard Model scenarios by considering the invariant-mass distribution of dijets produced in the decay of the lightest Randall–Sundrum graviton and transverse momentum distributions for decays in Supersymmetry. We consider only the effect of the POWHEG correction on the simulation of the hardest emission in the shower and ignore the normalisation factor required to correct the total widths and branching ratios to next-to-leading order accuracy.     

Semileptonic decays of heavy quarks in quantum chromodynamics

We investigate the semileptonic decays of heavy quarks in the leading non-trivial order in quantum chromodynamics. Effects of gluon corrections and the initial quark Fermi motion on the semileptonic rates and decay distributions are calculated. The resulting lepton energy spectrum for the charm semileptonic decay is compared with data to extract the mass of the charm quark. This is combined with the semileptonic branching ratio to predict the charm-quark lifetime. We find the lepton energy spectrum very stable with respect to gluon corrections. Expected spectra from the semileptonic decays of bottom and top quarks are presented. We also study the semileptonic decay process Q → q?v_? + G, involving the emission of a single hard non-collinear gluon. This process should be observable with a branching ratio of a few percent in the decays of top (and heavier) quarks.     

Top quark production asymmetries A(FB)t and A(FB)ℓ

A large forward-backward asymmetry is seen in both the top quark rapidity distribution A(FB)(t) and in the rapidity distribution of charged leptons A(FB)(?) from top quarks produced at the Tevatron. We study the kinematic and dynamic aspects of the relationship of the two observables arising from the spin correlation between the charged lepton and the top quark with different polarization states. We emphasize the value of both measurements, and we conclude that a new physics model which produces more right-handed than left-handed top quarks is favored by the present data.     

Composite weak bosons and their radiative decays

In composite models of leptons, quarks, and weak bosons, radiative decays of the Z-boson may occur with a relatively large rate. In these decays a photon and a new spin zero particle are produced. The latter subsequently decays into lepton or quark pairs, or into a pair of photons. Various phenomenological aspects of these decays are studied. Radiative decays of the W^± boson are suppressed with respect to those of the Z⁰.     

Two-and three-body decay modes of SUSY Higgs particles

We summarize the dominant decay modes of the neutral and charged Higgs bosons in the Minimal Supersymmetric extension of the Standard Model. While two-body decays are in general dominating, the branching ratios for three-body decays of the heavy scalar, pseudoscalar and charged Higgs bosons can be large below the thresholds if top quarks, W/Z bosons or heavy scalar bosons are involved. Analytical expressions have been derived for the partial decay widths and the physical implications of these decay modes are discussed.     

Semileptonic decays of top quarks

The lepton spectrum from the semileptonic decay of a heavy top quark is calculated, including the effect of the W propagator and QCD corrections. Lepton spectra from the decay of top quarks in toponium are affected by bound state effects, in particular by Fermi motion. Semileptonic decays may therefore probe the toponium wave function at very small distances.     

Loop induced flavor changing neutral decays of the top quark in a general two-Higgs-doublet model

Decays of the top quark induced by flavor changing neutral currents (FCNC) are known to be extremely rare events within the Standard Model. This is so not only for the decay modes into gauge bosons, but most notably in the case of the Higgs channels, e.g., t→H_SM+c, with a branching fraction of 10⁻¹³ at most. Therefore, detection of FCNC top quark decays in a future high-energy, and high-luminosity, machine like the LHC or the LC would be an indisputable signal of new physics. In this paper we show that within the simplest extension of the SM, namely the general two-Higgs-doublet model, the FCNC top quark decays into Higgs bosons, t→(h⁰,H⁰,A⁰)+c, can be the most favored FCNC modes — comparable or even more efficient than the gluon channel t→g+c. In both cases the optimal results are obtained for Type II models. However, only the Higgs channels can have rates reaching the detectable level (10⁻⁵), with a maximum of order 10⁻⁴ which is compatible with the charged Higgs bounds from radiative B-meson decays. We compare with the previous results obtained in the Higgs sector of the MSSM.     

K +→π + vv andK L 0 →μ + μ − decays within the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model

We present a detailed calculation of the contributions of charginos, scalar quarks, and charged Higgs boson to theK ⁺→π ⁺ vv andK _L ⁰ →μ ⁺ μ ⁻ decays. We include mixings: that of charginos and that of the scalar partners of the left and right handed top quark. We find that the box contribution to the amplitudes is much smaller than the penguin contribution, which can be ∼10% of the Standard Model contribution, even for relatively large SUSY masses. The charged Higgs contribution can be as large as 25% of the SM contribution in the first decay and as much as 40% of the SM contribution in the second decay.     

Higgs radiation off top quarks in high-energye + e − colliders

Higgs particles can be radiated off heavy top quarks which will be produced copiously in high energye ⁺ e ^? colliders. This process can be used to measure the Higgs-top quark coupling. We present the cross section for the production of Higgs bosons in the Standard Model. In addition we have studied the production of neutral and charged Higgs particles in association with heavy fermions in the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model.     

Longitudinal contribution to the alignment polarization of quarks produced in e+ e−-annihilation: an O(αs) effect

We calculate the longitudinal contribution to the alignment polarization P ^l of quarks produced in e ⁺ e ^? annihilation. In the Standard Model, the longitudinal alignment polarization vanishes at the Born term level and thus receives its first non-zero contribution from the O(α_s) tree graph process. We provide analytical and numerical results for the longitudinal alignment polarization of massless and massive quarks, in particular for the recently discovered top quark.