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.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:VTETD/oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/105001 |
| Date | 15 September 2021 |
| Creators | Kimmel Jr, Taylor Douglas |
| Contributors | Physics, Piilonen, Leo E., Barnes, Edwin Fleming, Minic, Djordje, Mariani, Camillo |
| Publisher | Virginia Tech |
| Source Sets | Virginia Tech Theses and Dissertation |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Dissertation |
| Format | ETD, application/pdf, application/pdf |
| Rights | In Copyright, http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ |
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