About   Contents   Introduction   Synopsis   Search   Subject Index   Summaries   Texts

WOLFENSTEIN 1964

Wolfenstein, L.;
Violation of CP Invariance and the Possibility of Very Weak Interactions
Phys. Rev. Lett. 13 (1964) 562;

Reprinted in
CP violation, editor L. Wolfenstein, p. 117-119..
D. B. Lichtenberg (ed.) and S. P. Rosen (ed.), Developments in the Quark Theory of Hadrons, Vol.1, 227-229..

Motivation
The observation (J. H. Christenson et al. Phys. Rev. Lett. 13 (1964) 138) of the decay K_L → 2π provides evidence that the weak interactions are not invariant with respect to the operation CP. The required magnitude of this CP-violating term in the weak-interaction Hamiltonian and the implications for other possible observations depend upon the theoretical model for explaining the K_L → 2π decay. Sachs has provided such a model (R. G. Sachs, Phys. Rev. Lett. 13 (1964) 286) in which

(1)

the CP-violating term is maximal in the sense that the Δ Q = - Δ S decay interaction is 90^° out of phase with Δ Q = + Δ S interaction,

(2)

CP violation would not occur in nonleptonic decays or in leptonic decays other than that of K^o, and

(3)

the strength of the CP-conserving term is comparable to the CP-violating term.

Related references
See also
R. G. Sachs, Phys. Rev. Lett. 13 (1964) 286;
W. J. Willis et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 13 (1964) 291;
B. L. Ioffe, Zh. Eksp. Teor. Fiz. 42 (1962) 1411;
B. L. Ioffe, JETP 15 (1962) 978;
Analyse data from
J. H. Christenson, J. W. Cronin, V. L. Fitch, and R. Turlay, Phys. Rev. Lett. 13 (1964) 138;
R. W. Birge et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 11 (1963) 35;