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Decays of neutral D mesons to final states containing K + π's could provide evidence for CP-violation from a source not accounted for in the Standard Model. Due to the interference between Cabibbo-favored and Cabibbo-suppressed transitions, a decay rate asymmetry of D0 → K0S π0 compared to D0 → K0Lπ0 has been predicted to be non-zero. If New Physics interferes in doubly Cabibbo-suppressed D decays, the measurement of this asymmetry would differ from the predicted value and may provide evidence for CP-violation beyond the CKM mechanism. I present an analysis method to measure this branching fraction asymmetry, R(D0) ≡ B(D0→K0S π0)−B(D0→K0L π0)/(B(D0→K0Sπ0)+B(D0→K0Lπ0)), utilizing e+e− → cc events in the Belle dataset. / Doctor of Philosophy / The Universe appears to be made almost entirely of matter rather than antimatter; however, matter and antimatter should have been created in equal amounts in the Big Bang. We do not know exactly why we observe so much more matter as compared to antimatter. The Standard Model (SM) of particle physics accounts for some of the asymmetry through Charge-Parity (CP) symmetry violation, which explains how particles behave differently than their corresponding antiparticles. In the current state of the SM, some CP-violation is allowed in decays via the weak force, but the theory does not account for enough CP violation to explain the amount of matter-antimatter asymmetry observed in the Universe. Decays of a D meson to a kaon (K meson) plus one or more pions (π mesons) via a new mechanism beyond the weak force could provide evidence of a new source of CP-violation. In this analysis, I present a method for analyzing the decays of neutral D mesons to a neutral kaon and a neutral pion in the Belle dataset to test the SM.

Um aussagekräftige, mit dem Experiment vergleichbare Resultate aus Berechnungen der Gitter-QCD zu erhalten, ist die Extrapolation zum Kontinuum unabdingbar. Das bewährte Symanzik-Verbesserungsprogramm führt zu einer systematischen Reduzierung der Ordnung von Cutoff-Effekten, die eine bessere Kontrolle über die genannten Fehler sowie größere und damit erschwinglichere Gitterabstände ermöglicht. Auf die Wilson-Fermionenwirkung bezogen bedarf es nur des Hinzufügens des Sheikholeslami-Wohlert-Terms mit dem O(a)-Verbesserungskoeffizienten csw. In der vorliegenden Arbeit wird eine Strategie zur nicht-perturbativen Bestimmung dieses Koeffizienten in der Theorie mit Nf=3+1 massiven Seequarks entwickelt. Diese ist in ein allgemeines, massenabhängiges Renormierungs- und Verbesserungsschema eingebettet, dessen Grundlagen dargelegt werden. Die Auferlegung der Verbesserungsbedingung, bei der die PCAC-Relation im Schrödinger-Funktional Verwendung findet, geschieht entlang einer Linie konstanter Physik, welche dem Charm-Quark näherungsweise seine physikalische Masse zuordnet. Dieser vergleichsweise aufwendige Ansatz hat zum Ziel, große, massenabhängige O(a^2)-Effekte in zukünftigen Simulationen im großen Volumen mit vier dynamischen Quarkspezies zu vermeiden. Die numerischen Resultate dieser Arbeit werden unter Verwendung der tree-level-verbesserten Lüscher-Weisz-Eichwirkung gewonnen. Da die sogenannte Gradient-Flow-Kopplung bei der Definition der Linie konstanter Physik Verwendung findet, wird in einer zusätzlichen Untersuchung die Wechselbeziehung dieser Kopplung mit der Topologischen Ladung beleuchtet, insbesondere im Bezug auf die unter den Namen Critical Slowing Down und Topology Freezing bekannten Phänomene. / In order to obtain sensible results from Lattice QCD that may be compared with experiment, extrapolation to the continuum is crucial. The well-established Symanzik improvement program systematically reduces the order of cutoff effects, allowing for better control of the aforementioned errors, as well as larger and thus more affordable lattice spacings. Applied to the Wilson fermion action, it entails the addition of the Sheikholeslami–Wohlert term with the O(a) improvement coefficient csw. In this work, a strategy is developed for the non-perturbative determination of csw in the theory with Nf=3+1 massive sea quarks. It is embedded in a general, mass-dependent renormalization and improvement scheme, for which we lay the foundations. The improvement condition, formulated by means of the PCAC relation in the Schrödinger Functional, is imposed along a line of constant physics that is designed to be close to the physical mass of the charm quark. The aim of this rather elaborate approach is to avoid large, mass-dependent O(a^2) effects in future large volume simulations with four dynamical quark species. The numerical results are worked out using the tree-level improved Lüscher–Weisz gauge action. Since the gradient flow coupling is employed in the definition of the line of constant physics, its interdependence with the topological charge in regard to critical slowing down and topology freezing is investigated in a supplemental study.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

A central goal of flavour physics is a precise determination of the elements of the CKM matrix, which quantifies the strength of charged-current weak interactions between quarks. Of particular interest is the angle γ in the 'b-d' unitarity triangle parameterisation of the CKM matrix. One of the most promising methods to determine γ directly is to measure CP violation in interfering B±->DK± decays, where D indicates a coherent superposition of D0 and D0bar, both of which decay to the same final state. When using this method it is essential to determine the hadronic decay parameters of the D precisely in order to reduce the systematic uncertainties on the measurement of γ. One such parameter is the strong-phase difference between D0 and D0bar decays, which must be accurately known across the entire kinematic phase space. In this thesis we present measurements related to the determination of γ at both the CLEO-c experiment at Cornell University and the LHCb experiment at CERN. Firstly, we describe a model-independent determination of the D->KsKK strong-phase difference using 818pb-1 of quantum-correlated D0-D0bar data collected by CLEO-c at the ψ(3770) resonance. We reconstruct D->KsKK decays tagged with a variety of final states. By studying these decays we determine the weighted cosine and sine of the strong-phase difference in bins across the Dalitz plane. We run simulations to estimate the impact of these measurements on a determination of γ using B±->D(KsKK)K± decays. The resulting uncertainty on γ due to the CLEO-c inputs is between 3.2° and 3.9°, depending on how the Dalitz plane is binned. Furthermore, we present a model-independent measurement of the CP content of the decay D0->KsKK in the kinematic region of the φ->KK resonance. The fraction of CP-odd events in this region is 0.76 or higher at the 90% C.L. We also present an analysis of data recorded by LHCb in 2010, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 36.5pb-1. We reconstruct the decays B±->D(Kπ)h± and B±->D(KK)h±, where h± indicates either K± or π±. Although there are not enough events in this dataset to measure γ, we are able to measure other observables related to CP violation in the B±->Dh± system. We measure B(DK,Fav)/B(Dπ,Fav), the ratio of the branching fraction of B±->D(Kπ)K± to that of B±->D(Kπ)π±, to be 0.066 ± 0.005 ± 0.004, and B(DK,CP)/B(Dπ,CP), the ratio of the branching fraction of B±->D(KK)K± to that of B±->D(KK)π±, to be 0.093 ± 0.019 ± 0.005. We determine several CP asymmetries: A(CP+,DK), the CP asymmetry in B±->D(KK)K± decays, is measured as 0.06 ± 0.17 ± 0.07; A(CP+,Dπ), the CP asymmetry in B±->D(KK)π± decays, is found to be 0.009 ± 0.042 ± 0.011; and A(Fav,DK), the CP asymmetry in B±->D(Kπ)K± decays, is measured as -0.109 ± 0.085 ± 0.019. Finally we calculate R(CP+), the ratio of the branching fraction of B±->D(KK)K± to that of B±->D(Kπ)K±, to be 1.41 ± 0.31 ± 0.11. These results indicate that LHCb is in a strong position to make a world-leading measurement of γ with a larger data sample.

This thesis documents two studies of the neutral charm meson system using the LHCb detector, and gives an overview of the numerous changes made to the LHCb software trigger in advance of Run 2 of the LHC. In the first analysis, amplitude models are applied to studies of the resonance structure in D⁰ → K⁰_SK^−π⁺ and D⁰ → K⁰_SK⁺π^− decays using proton-proton collision data, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 3.0 fb^−1, collected during Run 1 of the LHC. Relative magnitude and phase information is determined, and coherence factors and related observables are computed for both the whole phase space and a restricted region of 100 MeV/c² around the K*(892)^± resonance. Two formulations for the Kπ S-wave are used, both of which give a good description of the data. The ratio of branching fractions B (D⁰→ K⁰_SK⁺π^−) /B (D⁰→ K⁰_SK^−π⁺) is measured to be 0.655 ± 0.004 (stat) ± 0.006 (syst) over the full phase space and 0.370 ± 0.003 (stat) ± 0.012 (syst) in the restricted region. A search for CP violation is performed using the amplitude models and no significant effect is found. Predictions from SU(3) flavour symmetry for K*(892)K amplitudes of different charges are compared with the amplitude model results, and marginal agreement is found. The second study estimates the sensitivity to D⁰–D⁰ mixing and indirect CP violation parameters that can be achieved using a model-independent technique and the samples of D⁰→ K⁰_SK⁺K^− decays recorded by LHCb in Run 1 and Run 2 of the LHC. These studies show that constraints on these parameters could be significantly improved by an analysis of the anticipated Run 2 dataset.

This thesis presents two measurements made using data collected by the LHCb detector, operating at the Large Hadron Collider accelerator at the CERN particle physics laboratory. The first is a measurement of the production rates of promptly produced D0, D+, Ds+, and D*+ open charm mesons, using data collected in 2015 at a proton-proton centre-of-mass energy of √s = 13 TeV. The second is a search for direct CP violation in two three-body decays of the Lambda_c charm baryon, pKK and ppipi, using data collected in 2011 at √s = 7 TeV and in 2012 at √s = 8 TeV. For each measurement, motivation and context are given from the standpoint of improving the theoretical understanding of the Standard Model and searching for signs of physics that cannot be explained by it, and then the various statistical analysis techniques used to extract physical quantities from the data are explained. The systematic limitations of the method are explored and quantified, and then the results are presented.