Hunting for CP violation with untagged charm decays.pdf

a r X i v : h e p - p h / 0 4 0 3 0 3 0 v 2 1 1 M a r 2 0 0 4 Hunting for CP violation with untagged charm decays Alexey A. Petrov Department of Physics and Astronomy, Wayne State University, Detroit, MI 48201 and Michigan Center for Theoretical Physics, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109 We construct a CP-violating observable which does not require flavor or CP tagging of the initial state. The proposed decay asymmetry could be measured at both threshold and non-threshold charm physics experiments and provide better sensitivity to small CP-violating parameters in charm decays. I. INTRODUCTION One of the most important motivations for stud- ies of CP violation in charm decays is the possi- bility of observing signals of new physics. It is expected that CP-violating amplitudes generated by Standard Model (SM) interactions are numer- ically small [1], so observation of CP-violation in the current round of experiments will provide a “smoking gun” signal of new physics, even if its source is not clearly identified. This robust predic- tion follows from the fact that weak decay of the charmed meson or baryon is governed by the real 2 × 2 Cabbibo matrix, as all quarks which build up the hadronic states in non-leptonic weak decay belong to the first two generations. The only pos- sible SM CP-violating amplitude comes from the virtual b quarks in penguin or box-type diagrams, but it is strongly suppressed by the the small com- bination of Cabbibo-Kobayashi-Maskawa (CKM) matrix elements V ?cbVub ～ O(λ5), where λ = 0.2 is the Wolfenstein parameter. This small “Standard Model background” makes charm decays a valu- able tool in searching for CP-violating effects of new physics, especially since the acquired datasets available in charm physics experiments are usually quite large. Let us first review the relevant formalism in or- der to collect necessary formulas. As in B-decays, CP violating contributions can affect charm tran- sitions in three distinct ways [2]. (