Measurement of the Strong Phase in D0 - K+pi- Using Quantum Correlations.pdf

a r X i v : 0 7 1 2 .0 4 9 8 v 1 [ h e p - e x ] 4 D e c 2 0 0 7 Proceedings of the CHARM 2007 Workshop, Ithaca, NY, August 5-8, 2007 1 Measurement of the Strong Phase in D 0 → K + π ? Using Quantum Correlations W. M. Sun (for the CLEO Collaboration) Laboratory for Elementary-Particle Physics, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853, USA We exploit the quantum coherence between pair-produced D0 and D?0 in ψ(3770) decays to study charm mixing and to make a first measurement of the relative strong phase δ between D0 → K+π? and D?0 → K+π?. Using 281 pb?1 of e+e? collision data collected with the CLEO-c detector at Ecm = 3.77 GeV, as well as branching fraction input from other experiments, we make a preliminary determination of cos δ = 1.03 ± 0.19 ± 0.08, where the uncertainties are statistical and systematic, respectively. By further including other external mixing parameter measurements, we obtain an alternate measurement of cos δ = 0.93±0.32±0.04, where the systematic uncertainty from assuming x sin δ = 0 has not been included. 1. Introduction Recent measurements of D0-D?0 mixing parame- ters [1, 2, 3, 4] highlight the need for information on the relative phase between the Cabibbo favored de- cay D0 → K?π+ and the doubly Cabibbo suppressed decay D?0 → K?π+. Here, we present a measure- ment that takes advantage of the correlated produc- tion of D0 and D?0 mesons in e+e? collisions. If there are no accompanying particles, the D0D?0 pair is in a quantum-coherent C = ?1 state. Because the ini- tial state (the virtual photon) has JPC = 1??, there follows a set of selection rules for the decays of the D0 and D?0 [5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15]. For example, both D0 and D?0 cannot decay to CP eigen- states with the same eigenvalue. On the other hand, decays to CP eigenstates of opposite eigenvalue are enhanced by a factor of two. More generally, final states that can be reached by both D0 and D?0 (such as K?π+) are subject to similar interference effects. As a