Resonant Substructure in Antikaon, Pion Pion Pion Decays of D Mesons
Abstract
We determine the resonant substructure of D to| Kpipipi decays using a five-dimensional maximum likelihood technique to extract the relative fractions and phases of the amplitudes contributing to the K^-pi^+ pi^+pi^-, | K^0pi^+pi^+pi^ -, K^-pi^+pi^+ pi^0 and | K^0 pi^+pi^-pi^0 final states. We find that two-body decay modes around for about 75% of these decays. We obtain branching ratios for D to | K a_1, D to | K^* rho , D to | K_1(1270) pi, D to | K_1(1400) pi and D^0 to | K^0 omega decay modes, as well as several three and four-body decay modes. In the case of D to | K a_1 and D to | K^* rho , we obtain the branching ratios for all three possible isospin combinations, enabling us to extract the isospin 1/2 and 3/2 amplitudes. This allows us to eliminate the ambiguity due to phase shifts between the isospin amplitudes when comparing our results with theoretical models. We find that the isospin 3/2 amplitudes are suppressed relative to the isospin 1/2 amplitudes, confirming that an understanding of the lifetime difference of the D^0 and D^+ depends on an understanding of two-body hadronic decays. For the D to | K^ * rho decay modes, we obtain detailed information on the polarization of the | K^* and rho. This enables us to obtain information on form-factors for D to | K^* and D to rho transitions, within the context of the factorization hypothesis. Comparison of our results on D to | K^* rho decays with recent results on semileptonic decays allows us to test the factorization hypothesis.
- Publication:
-
Ph.D. Thesis
- Pub Date:
- January 1990
- Bibcode:
- 1990PhDT........80D
- Keywords:
-
- ANTIKAON;
- PION;
- D MESONS;
- Physics: Elementary Particles and High Energy