Tests of the fundamental symmetries in eta meson decays

Patterns of chiral symmetry violation and tests of the conservation of the fundamental C, P and CP symmetries are key physics issues in studies of the pi0, eta and eta' meson decays. These tests include searches for rare or forbidden decays and searches for asymmetries among the decay products in the not-so-rare decays. Some examples for the rare decays are eta-->2pi, eta-->4pi0 (CP tests), decays into an odd number of photons (e.g., eta-->3g) and the decay eta-->pi0e+e- (C tests). The experimental studies of the pi0, eta and eta' meson decays are carried out at four European accelerator research facilities: KLOE/KLOE-2 at DAFNE (Frascati), Crystal Ball at MAMI (Mainz), WASA at COSY (J\"ulich), Crystal Barrel at ELSA (Bonn).Comment: 9 pages, 2 figures, proceedings of Symposium on Prospects in the Physics of Discrete Symmetries, DISCRETE 2010, 6 - 11 December, Rome; v2: added reference

QCD Multipole Expansion and Hadronic Transitions in Heavy Quarkonium Systems

We review the developments of QCD multipole expansion and its applications to hadronic transitions and some radiative decays of heavy quarkonia. Theoretical predictions are compsred with updated experimental results.Comment: 23 pages, 7 figures. Some typos corrected, and 3 references adde

Determining the dominant partial wave contributions from angular distributions of single- and double-polarization observables in pseudoscalar meson photoproduction

This work presents a simple method to determine the significant partial wave contributions to experimentally determined observables in pseudoscalar meson photoproduction. First, fits to angular distributions are presented and the maximum orbital angular momentum Lmax needed to achieve a good fit is determined. Then, recent polarization measurements for $\gamma p \rightarrow \pi^{0} p$ from ELSA, GRAAL, JLab and MAMI are investigated according to the proposed method. This method allows us to project high-spin partial wave contributions to any observable as long as the measurement has the necessary statistical accuracy. We show, that high precision and large angular coverage in the polarization data are needed in order to be sensitive to high-spin resonance states and thereby also for the finding of small resonance contributions. This task can be achieved via interference of these resonances with the well-known states. For the channel $\gamma p \rightarrow \pi^{0} p$, those are the $N(1680)\frac{5}{2}^{+}$ and $\Delta(1950)\frac{7}{2}^{+}$, contributing to the F-waves

The reactions ππ→ππ\pi\pi \rightarrow \pi\pi π π → π π and γγ→ππ\gamma\gamma \rightarrow \pi\pi γ γ → π π in χ\chi χ PT with an isosinglet scalar resonance

The lowest-lying resonance in the QCD spectrum is the $0^{++}$ isoscalar $\sigma$ meson, also known as the $f_0(500)$. We augment SU(2) chiral perturbation theory ($\chi$PT) by including the $\sigma$ meson as an additional explicit degree of freedom, as proposed by Soto, Talavera, and Tarr\'us and others. In this effective field theory, denoted $\chi$PT$_S$, the $\sigma$ meson's well-established mass and decay width are not sufficient to properly renormalize its self energy. At $\mathcal{O}(p^4)$ another low-energy constant appears in the dressed $\sigma$-meson propagator; we adjust it so that the isoscalar pion-pion scattering length is also reproduced. We compare the resulting amplitudes for the $\pi\pi\rightarrow\pi\pi$ and $\gamma\gamma\rightarrow\pi\pi$ reactions to data from threshold through the energies at which the $\sigma$-meson resonance affects observables. The leading-order (LO) $\pi \pi$ amplitude reproduces the $\sigma$-meson pole position, the isoscalar $\pi \pi$ scattering lengths and $\pi \pi$ scattering and $\gamma \gamma \rightarrow \pi \pi$ data up to $\sqrt{s} \approx 0.5$ GeV. It also yields a $\gamma\gamma\rightarrow\pi\pi$ amplitude that obeys the Ward identity. The value obtained for the $\pi^0$ polarizability is, however, only slightly larger than that obtained in standard $\chi$PT.Comment: 17 pages, 7 figures. This version, which will be published in European Physical Journal A, contains clarification and more explanation of several points, as well as additional reference