Determination of the angle γ\gamma from nonleptonic Bc→DsD0B_c \to D_s D^0 decays

We note that the two body nonleptonic pure tree decays $B_c^\pm \to D_s^\pm D^0(\bar D^0)$ and the corresponding vector-vector modes $B_c^\pm \to D_s^{* \pm} D^{*0}(\bar D^{* 0})$ are well suited to extract the weak phase $\gamma$ of the unitarity triangle. The CP violating phase $\gamma$ can be determined cleanly as these decay modes are free from the penguin pollutions.Comment: 12 pages, LaTeX, 2 references added, Minor changes in the text, to appear in Phys. Rev.

Final-State Phases in Doubly-Cabibbo-Suppressed Charmed Meson Nonleptonic Decays

Cabibbo-favored nonleptonic charmed particle decays exhibit large final-state phase differences in $\bar K \pi$ and $\bar K^* \pi$ but not $\bar K \rho$ channels. It is of interest to know the corresponding pattern of final-state phases in doubly-Cabibbo-suppressed decays, governed by the $c \to d u \bar s$ subprocess. An experimental program is outlined for determining such phases via measurements of rates for $D \to K^* \pi$ and $K (\rho, \omega,\phi)$ channels, and determination of interference between bands in Dalitz plots. Such a program is feasible at planned high-intensity sources of charmed particles.Comment: 12 pages, LaTeX, 2 figures, to be submitted to Phys. Rev. D. Revised versio

Neonatal Pain-Related Stress and NFKBIA Genotype Are Associated with Altered Cortisol Levels in Preterm Boys at School Age

Neonatal pain-related stress is associated with elevated salivary cortisol levels to age 18 months in children born very preterm, compared to full-term, suggesting early programming effects. Importantly, interactions between immune/inflammatory and neuroendocrine systems may underlie programming effects. We examined whether cortisol changes persist to school age, and if common genetic variants in the promoter region of the NFKBIA gene involved in regulation of immune and inflammatory responses, modify the association between early experience and later life stress as indexed by hair cortisol levels, which provide an integrated index of endogenous HPA axis activity. Cortisol was assayed in hair samples from 128 children (83 born preterm ≤ 32 weeks gestation and 45 born full-term) without major sensory, motor or cognitive impairments at age 7 years. We found that hair cortisol levels were lower in preterm compared to term-born children. Downregulation of the HPA axis in preterm children without major impairment, seen years after neonatal stress terminated, suggests persistent alteration of stress system programming. Importantly, the etiology was gender-specific such that in preterm boys but not girls, specifically those with the minor allele for NFKBIA rs2233409, lower hair cortisol was associated with greater neonatal pain (number of skin-breaking procedures from birth to term), independent of medical confounders. Moreover, the minor allele (CT or TT) of NFKBIA rs2233409 was associated with higher secretion of inflammatory cytokines, supporting the hypothesis that neonatal pain-related stress may act as a proinflammatory stimulus that induces long-term immune cell activation. These findings are the first evidence that a long-term association between early pain-related stress and cortisol may be mediated by a genetic variants that regulate the activity of NF-κB, suggesting possible involvement of stress/inflammatory mechanisms in HPA programming in boys born very preterm

Leptonic and Semileptonic Decays of Charm and Bottom Hadrons

We review the experimental measurements and theoretical descriptions of leptonic and semileptonic decays of particles containing a single heavy quark, either charm or bottom. Measurements of bottom semileptonic decays are used to determine the magnitudes of two fundamental parameters of the standard model, the Cabibbo-Kobayashi-Maskawa matrix elements $V_{cb}$ and $V_{ub}$. These parameters are connected with the physics of quark flavor and mass, and they have important implications for the breakdown of CP symmetry. To extract precise values of $|V_{cb}|$ and $|V_{ub}|$ from measurements, however, requires a good understanding of the decay dynamics. Measurements of both charm and bottom decay distributions provide information on the interactions governing these processes. The underlying weak transition in each case is relatively simple, but the strong interactions that bind the quarks into hadrons introduce complications. We also discuss new theoretical approaches, especially heavy-quark effective theory and lattice QCD, which are providing insights and predictions now being tested by experiment. An international effort at many laboratories will rapidly advance knowledge of this physics during the next decade.Comment: This review article will be published in Reviews of Modern Physics in the fall, 1995. This file contains only the abstract and the table of contents. The full 168-page document including 47 figures is available at http://charm.physics.ucsb.edu/papers/slrevtex.p

Experimental Tests of Factorization in Charmless Non-Leptonic Two-Body B Decays

Using a theoretical framework based on the next-to-leading order QCD-improved effective Hamiltonian and a factorization Ansatz for the hadronic matrix elements of the four-quark operators, we reassess branching fractions in two-body non-leptonic decays $B \to PP, PV, VV$, involving the lowest lying light pseudoscalar $(P)$ and vector $(V)$ mesons in the standard model. Using the sensitivity of the decay rates on the effective number of colors, $N_c$, as a criterion of theoretical predictivity, we classify all the current-current (tree) and penguin transitions in five different classes. The recently measured charmless two-body $B \to PP$ decays $(B^+ \to K^+ \eta^\prime, B^0 \to K^0 \eta^\prime, B^0 \to K^+\pi^-, B^+ \to \pi^+ K^0$ and charge conjugates) are dominated by the $N_c$-stable QCD penguins (class-IV transitions) and their estimates are consistent with data. The measured charmless $B \to PV$ $(B^+ \to \omega K^+, ~B^+ \to \omega h^+)$ and $B\to VV$ transition $(B \to \phi K^*)$, on the other hand, belong to the penguin (class-V) and tree (class-III) transitions. The class-V penguin transitions are in general more difficult to predict. We propose a number of tests of the factorization framework in terms of the ratios of branching ratios for some selected $B \to h_1 h_2$ decays involving light hadrons $h_1$ and $h_2$, which depend only moderately on the form factors. We also propose a set of measurements to determine the effective coefficients of the current-current and QCD penguin operators. The potential impact of $B \to h_1 h_2$ decays on the CKM phenomenology is emphasized by analyzing a number of decay rates in the factorization framework.Comment: 64 pages (LaTex) including 13 figures, requires epsfig.sty; submitted to Phys. Rev.

Expulsion of Magnetic Flux Lines from the Growing Superconducting Core of a Magnetized Quark Star

The expulsion of magnetic flux lines from a growing superconducting core of a quark star has been investigated. The idea of impurity diffusion in molten alloys and an identical mechanism of baryon number transport from hot quark-gluon-plasma phase to hadronic phase during quark-hadron phase transition in the early universe, micro-second after big bang has been used. The possibility of Mullins-Sekerka normal-superconducting interface instability has also been studied.Comment: Thoroughly revised version. Accepted for Astrophysics & Space Scienc

Exploring CP violation with Bs0→D0ˉϕB_s^0 \to \bar{D^0} \phi decays

We note that it is possible to determine the weak phase \gamma from the time dependent measurements of the decays $B_s^0(t) (\bar B_s^0 (t)) \to \bar D^0 \phi without any hadronic uncertainties. These decays are described by the color suppressed tree diagrams and hence are free from the penguin pollutions. We further demonstrate that \gamma can also be extracted with no hadronic uncertainties from an angular analysis of corresponding vector vector modes,$B_s^0(t) (\bar B_s^0 (t)) \to \bar D^{* 0} \phi $. Although the branching ratios for these decay modes are quite small$ {\cal O} (10^{-5}-10^{-6})$, the strategies presented here appear to be particularly interesting for the "second generation" experiments at hadronic B factories.Comment: 13 pages, LaTeX, 2 references added, Minor changes in the text, to appear in Phys. Rev.

Bs-Bs.bar Mixing, CP Violation and Extraction of CKM Phases from Untagged Bs Data Samples

A width difference of the order of 20\% has previously been predicted for the two mass eigenstates of the $B_s$ meson. The dominant contributor to the width difference is the $b\rightarrow c\bar c s$ transition, with final states common to both $B_s$ and $\overline{B}_s$. All current experimental analyses fit the time-dependences of flavor-specific $B_s$-modes to a single exponential, which essentially determines the average $B_s$ lifetime. We stress that the same data sample allows even the measurement of the width difference. To see that, this note reviews the time-dependent formulae for tagged $B_s$ decays, which involve rapid oscillatory terms depending on $\Delta mt$. In untagged data samples the rapid oscillatory terms cancel. Their time-evolutions depend only on the much more slowly varying exponential falloffs. We discuss in detail the extraction of the two widths, and identify the large (small) CP-even (-odd) rate with that of the light (heavy) $B_s$ mass eigenstate. It is demonstrated that decay length distributions of some \underline{untagged} $B_s$ modes, such as $\rho^0 K_S, \; D_s^{(*)\pm}K^{(*)\mp}$, can be used to extract the notoriously difficult CKM unitarity triangle angle $\gamma$. Sizable CP violating effects may be seen with such untagged $B_s$ data samples. Listing $\Delta\Gamma$ as an observable allows for additional important standard model constraints. Within the CKM model, the ratio $\Delta\Gamma/ \Delta m$ involves no CKM parameters, only a QCD uncertainty. Thus a measurement of $\Delta\Gamma \;(\Delta m)$ would predict $\Delta m \;(\Delta\Gamma )$, up to the QCD uncertainty. A large width difference would automatically solve the puzzle of the number of charmed hadrons per $B$ decay in favor of theory. We also derive an upper limit of $(| \Delta\Gamma | / \Gamma)_{B_s} <~ 0.3$. Further, we must abandon the notion of branching fractions of $B_s\rightarrow f$, and instead consider $B(B^0_{L(H)}\rightarrow f)$, in analogy to the neutral kaons.Comment: 46 pages, revte

On the Low Surface Magnetic Field Structure of Quark Stars

Following some of the recent articles on hole super-conductivity and related phenomena by Hirsch \cite{H1,H2,H3}, a simple model is proposed to explain the observed low surface magnetic field of the expected quark stars. It is argued that the diamagnetic moments of the electrons circulating in the electro-sphere induce a magnetic field, which forces the existing quark star magnetic flux density to become dilute. We have also analysed the instability of normal-superconducting interface due to excess accumulation of magnetic flux lines, assuming an extremely slow growth of superconducting phase through a first order bubble nucleation type transition.Comment: 24 pages REVTEX, one .eps figure, psfig.sty is include

Cabibbo-Suppressed Decays of D^+ \to \pi^+\pi^0, K^+\bar{K}^0, K^+\pi^0

Using a 13.7 fb-1 data sample collected with the CLEO II and II.V detectors, we report new branching fraction measurements for two Cabibbo-suppressed decay modes of the D+ meson: BR(D+ -> pi+ pi0) = (1.31 +/- 0.17 +/- 0.09 +/- 0.09) x 10^(-3)and BR(D+ -> K+ K0bar) = (5.24 +/- 0.43 +/- 0.20 +/- 0.34) x 10^(-3) which are significant improvements over past measurements. The errors reflect statistical and systematical uncertainties as well as the uncertainty in the absolute D+ branching fraction scale. We also set the first 90% confidence level upper limit on the branching fraction of the doubly Cabibbo-suppressed decay mode BR(D+ -> K+ pi0) < 4.2 x 10^(-4).Comment: 8 pages postscript, also available through http://w4.lns.cornell.edu/public/CLNS, submitted to PR