skip to main content
OSTI.GOV title logo U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Title: Why most flavor-dependence predictions for nonleptonic charm decays are wrong: flavor symmetry and final-state interactions in nonleptonic decays of charmed hadrons

Conference ·
OSTI ID:6615891

Nonleptonic weak decays of strange hadrons are complicated by the interplay of weak and strong interactions. Models based either on symmetry properties or on the selection of certain types of diagrams are both open to criticism. The symmetries used are all broken in strong interactions, and the selection of some diagrams and neglect of others is never seriously justified. Furthermore, the number of related decays of strange hadrons is small, so that experimental data are insufficient for singificant tests of phenomenological models with a few free parameters. The discovery of charmed particles with many open channels for nonleptonic decays has provided a new impetus for a theoretical understanding of these processes. The GIM current provides a well defined weak hamiltonian, which can justifiably be used to first order. The QCD approach to strong interactions gives flavor-indpendent couplings and flavor symmetry broken only by quark masses. In a model with n generations of quarks and 2n flavors, a flavor symmetry group SU(2n) can be defined which is broken only by H/sub weak/ and the quark masses.Here again, the same two approaches by symmetry and dynamics have been used. But both types of treatment tend to consider only the symmetry properties or dominant diagrams of the weak interaction, including some subtle effects, while overlooking rather obvious effects of strong interactions.

Research Organization:
Fermi National Accelerator Lab., Batavia, IL (USA); Argonne National Lab., IL (USA)
DOE Contract Number:
W-31-109-ENG-38
OSTI ID:
6615891
Report Number(s):
ANL-HEP-CP-80-64; CONF-8009139-1; TRN: 81-007886
Resource Relation:
Conference: International School of Subnuclear Physics conference, Geneva, Switzerland, Sep 1980
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English