Measurement of the rare decay pi0 -> e+ e-
High Energy Physics - Experiment
2008-11-26 v1
Abstract
The branching ratio of the rare decay pi0 -> e+ e- has been measured precisely, using the complete data set from the KTeV E799-II experiment at Fermilab. We observe 794 candidate pi0 -> e+ e- events using K0_L -> 3pi0 as a source of tagged pi0's. The expected background is 52.7 +- 11.2 events, predominantly from high e+ e- mass pi0 -> e+ e- gamma decays. We have measured B[(pi0 -> e+ e-), (m_e+e-/m_pi0)^2 > 0.95] = 6.44 +- 0.25(stat) +- 0.22(syst) x10^(-8), which is above the unitary bound from pi0 -> gamma gamma and within the range of theoretical expectations from the standard model.
Cite
@article{arxiv.hep-ex/0610072,
title = {Measurement of the rare decay pi0 -> e+ e-},
author = {E. Abouzaid},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:hep-ex/0610072},
year = {2008}
}
Comments
6 pages, 4 figures