How to test fundamental symmetries: Comparison of existing and planned facilities

Journal Article · Sat Oct 01 04:00:00 EDT 1994 · Physics of Atomic Nuclei

OSTI ID:114739

Ruf, T ^[1]; Tauscher, L ^[2]

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1. CERN, Geneva (Switzerland)
2. Basel Univ. (Switzerland)

Symmetries play an impotant role in physics. In classical physics, space-time symmetry is built-in and the laws of elementary interactions are automatically invariant under parity inversion (P), or reflection of the system in a mirror, and time reversal (T); charge conjugation symmetry (C) is trivially preserved since no classical interaction mixes matter and antimatter. In the real world, currently described by quantum field therories having the property of local gauge invariance, both parity and charge conjugation symmetries are maximally violated by the weak interaction, although conserved in strong and electromagnetic interactions. In contrast, their product (CP) has so far been observed to have good symmetry in all systems except for the (weak) decay of the neutral kaon, where the CP-violating amplitude is very small ({approx}2{times}10{sup {minus}3}) compared with the CP-conserving amplitude. CP violation can be described within the standard model by some complex elements in the quark-mass mixing matrix, but its origin is far from understood. The authors discuss the potential of existing and planned facilities that allow the measurement of CP, T, and CPT violations in meson decays. Given the present excellent agreement of all (other) experimental measurements with predictions of the standard model, despite the acknowledged fault lines in the latter, it is of utmost importance to confront it with measurements of CP violation in different systems.

• OSTI ID: 114739
• Report Number(s): CONF-9309352--
• Journal Information: Physics of Atomic Nuclei, Journal Name: Physics of Atomic Nuclei Journal Issue: 10 Vol. 57; ISSN 1063-7788; ISSN PANUEO
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

66 PHYSICS
CP INVARIANCE
CPT THEOREM
MESONS
STANDARD MODEL
T INVARIANCE
TESTING
WEAK PARTICLE DECAY