Published May 9, 2008 | Version v1
Journal article

Determination of the Parity of the Neutral Pion via Its Four-Electron Decay

  • 1. Enrico Fermi Institute, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois 60637 (United States)
  • 2. Department of Physics and Institute of Nuclear and Particle Physics, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia 22901 (United States)
  • 3. University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado 80309 (United States)

Description

We present a new determination of the parity of the neutral pion via the double Dalitz decay π0→e+e-e+e-. Our sample, which consists of 30 511 candidate decays, was collected from KL→π0π0π0 decays in flight at the KTeV-E799 experiment at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory. We confirm the negative π0 parity and place a limit on scalar contributions to the π0→e+e-e+e- decay amplitude of less than 3.3% assuming CPT conservation. The π0γ*γ* form factor is well described by a momentum-dependent model with a slope parameter fit to the final state phase-space distribution. Additionally, we have measured the branching ratio of this mode to be B(π0→e+e-e+e-)=(3.26±0.18)x10-5

Additional details

Publishing Information

Journal Title
Physical Review Letters
Journal Volume
100
Journal Issue
18
Journal Page Range
p. 182001-182001.5
ISSN
0031-9007
CODEN
PRLTAO

Optional Information

Notes
(c) 2008 The American Physical Society
Collaborations
KTeV Collaboration