SU(3) symmetry breaking and CP violation in D -> PP decays

Evidence of CP violation in the charm sector has been observed recently by the LHCb and CDF Collaborations. Adopting the topological diagram approach, we study flavor SU(3) symmetry breaking effects in the weak decay tree amplitudes of singly Cabibbo-suppressed $D\to PP$ decays. The symmetry breaking in the color-allowed and color-suppressed amplitudes is estimated with the help of the factorization ansatz, while that in the $W$-exchange amplitude is done by fitting to related branching fraction data. We find that the $W$-exchange amplitudes stay in the second quadrant relative to the color-allowed tree amplitude, albeit there are two possibilities for one type of $W$-exchange amplitude. The weak decay penguin amplitudes, on the other hand, are evaluated within the framework of QCD factorization. Using the input of topological tree amplitudes extracted from the Cabibbo-favored decay modes and the perturbative results for QCD penguin amplitudes, we make predictions for the branching fractions and CP asymmetries of singly Cabibbo-suppressed modes. The predictions of branching fractions are generally improved from those in the SU(3) limit. We conclude that the direct CP asymmetry difference between $D^0 \to K^+ K^-$ and $D^0 \to \pi^+ \pi^-$ is about $-(0.139\pm 0.004)$ and $-(0.151\pm 0.004)$ for the two solutions of $W$-exchange amplitudes, respectively. We also find that the CP asymmetry of D^0\to K^0\ov K^0 dominated by the interference between $W$-exchange amplitudes ranges from $-0.62\times 10^{-3}$ to $-1.82\times 10^{-3}$. We study phenomenological implications of two new physics scenarios for explaining the observed CP asymmetry in the charm sector, one with large penguin amplitudes and the other with a large chromomagnetic dipole operator. We find that the two scenarios can be discriminated by the measurements of CP asymmetries of a set of decay modes.Comment: 23 pages, three new paragraphs added in the beginning of Sec. III. Version to appear in PRD. arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:1201.078

Branching fractions of semileptonic DD and DsD_s decays from the covariant light-front quark model

Based on the predictions of the relevant form factors from the covariant light-front quark model, we show the branching fractions for the $D (D_s) \to (P,\,S,\,V,\,A)\,\ell\nu_\ell$ ($\ell=e$ or $\mu$) decays, where $P$ denotes the pseudoscalar meson, $S$ the scalar meson with a mass above 1 GeV, $V$ the vector meson and $A$ the axial-vector one. Comparison with the available experimental results are made, and we find an excellent agreement. The predictions for other decay modes can be tested in a charm factory, e.g., the BESIII detector. The future measurements will definitely further enrich our knowledge on the hadronic transition form factor as well as the inner structure of the even-parity mesons ($S$ and $A$).Comment: Predictions on D-> K1(1270), K1(1400) l nu rates correcte

The semileptonic baryonic decay Ds+→ppˉe+νeD_s^+\to p\bar p e^+ \nu_e

The decay $D_s^+\to p \bar p e^+\nu_e$ with a proton-antiproton pair in the final state is unique in the sense that it is the only semileptonic baryonic decay which is physically allowed in the charmed meson sector. Its measurement will test our basic knowledge on semileptonic $D_s^+$ decays and the low-energy $p\bar p$ interactions. Taking into account the major intermediate state contributions from $\eta, \eta', f_0(980)$ and $X(1835)$, we find that its branching fraction is at the level of $10^{-9} \sim 10^{-8}$. The location and the nature of $X(1835)$ state are crucial for the precise determination of the branching fraction. We wish to trigger a new round of a careful study with the upcoming more data in BESIII as well as the future super tau-charm factory.Comment: final version, accepted for publication in Phys. Lett.

Criticality in Translation-Invariant Parafermion Chains

In this work we numerically study critical phases in translation-invariant $\mathbb{Z}_N$ parafermion chains with both nearest- and next-nearest-neighbor hopping terms. The model can be mapped to a $\mathbb{Z}_N$ spin model with nearest-neighbor couplings via a generalized Jordan-Wigner transformation and translation invariance ensures that the spin model is always self-dual. We first study the low-energy spectrum of chains with only nearest-neighbor coupling, which are mapped onto standard self-dual $\mathbb{Z}_N$ clock models. For $3\leq N\leq 6$ we match the numerical results to the known conformal field theory(CFT) identification. We then analyze in detail the phase diagram of a $N=3$ chain with both nearest and next-nearest neighbor hopping and six critical phases with central charges being $4/5$, 1 or 2 are found. We find continuous phase transitions between $c=1$ and $c=2$ phases, while the phase transition between $c=4/5$ and $c=1$ is conjectured to be of Kosterlitz-Thouless type.Comment: published versio