Measurement of the pi0 Lifetime: QCD Axial Anomaly and Chiral Symmetry

by A.M Bernstein (MIT - Physics Department and Laboratory for Nuclear Science)

Monday 21 Feb 2011, 14:15 → 15:45 Europe/Berlin

Seminar room 3344 (TUM - Physics Department - Garching)

A new Primakoff effect measurement of the lifetime of the neutral pi meson to an accuracy of 3% will be presented. This tests a prediction due to the axial anomaly of QCD, modified by a small isospin breaking chiral correction which is proportional to the mass difference of the up and down quarks. The implications of this result for future experimental tests of the axial anomaly will be discussed, along with some other processes that are sensitive to isospin breaking.