tau Decays to Five Mesons in TAUOLA

The tau-decay library TAUOLA has gained popularity over the last decade. However, with the continuously increasing precision of the data, some of its functionality has become insufficient. One of the requirements is the implementation of decays into five mesons plus a neutrino with a realistic decay amplitude. This note describes a step into this direction. For the 2pi- pi+ 2pi0 mode the three decay chains tau- --> a_1- nu --> rho- (--> pi- pi0) omega (--> pi- pi+ pi0) nu, tau- --> a_1- nu --> a_1- (--> 2pi- pi+) f_0 (--> 2pi0) nu, and tau- --> a_1- nu --> a_1- (--> pi- 2pi0) f_0 (--> pi + pi-) nu are introduced with simple assumptions about the couplings and propagators of the various resonances. Similar amplitudes (without the rho omega contributions) are adopted for the pi- 4pi0 and 3pi- 2pi+ modes. The five-pion amplitude is thus based on a simple model, which, however, can be considered as a first realistic example. Phase-space generation includes the possibility of presampling the omega and a_1 resonances, in one channel only, however. This is probably sufficient for the time being, both for physics applications and for tests. The technical test of the new part of the generator is performed by comparing Monte Carlo and analytical results. To this end a non-realistic, but easy to calculate, purely scalar amplitude for the decay into five massless pions was used.Comment: 10 page

The radiative return at small angles: virtual corrections

Virtual corrections for electron--positron annihilation into one real and one off-shell photon of invariant mass Q^2 are evaluated. Special attention is paid to those configurations where the real photon is collinear with the beam direction. This calculation is an important ingredient of a Monte Carlo program, which simulates events with tagged photons from initial-state radiation, including NLO corrections.Comment: 8 pages, 2 figure

Precision measurement of the hadronic cross-section through the radiative return method

Electron--positron annihilation into hadrons plus an energetic photon from initial-state radiation allows the hadronic cross-section to be measured over a wide range of energies at high luminosity meson factories. Weighted integrals over this cross-section are a decisive input for electroweak precision tests. A Monte Carlo event generator called PHOKHARA has been developed, which simulates $e^+ e^- \to$ hadrons + photon(s) at the NLO accuracy. The latest tests and upgrades are presented in this paper.Comment: Talk given at 7th International Workshop on Tau Lepton Physics (TAU 02), Santa Cruz, California, 10-13 Sep 2002. TAU-2002-WE06. 10 pages, 12 figure

The radiative return at phi- and B-factories: small-angle photon emission at next to leading order

The radiative return offers the unique possibility for a measurement of the cross section of electron--positron annihilation into hadrons over a wide range of energies. The large luminosity of present phi- and B-factories easily compensates for the additional factor of alpha due to the emission of a hard photon. Final states with photons at large angles can be easily identified. The rate for events with collinear photons, however, is enhanced by a large logarithm and allows, in particular at lower energies, for a complementary measurement. The Monte Carlo generator PHOKHARA, which includes next to leading order corrections from virtual and real photon emission, has been extended from large photon angles into the collinear region, using recent results for the virtual corrections. In addition, the present version includes final state radiation for muon and pion pair production and final states with four pions. Implications for the experimental analysis at three typical energies, 1.02, 4 and 10.6 GeV, are presented: the magnitude of these new corrections is studied, possibilities for the separation of initial and final state radiation are proposed, and the differences with respect to the previous treatment based on structure functions are investigated.Comment: 13 pages, 25 figures. Misprint in Eq.(24) correcte