Resonant Substructure in Kπππ Decays of D Mesons

Citation

DeJongh, Don Frederic (1990) Resonant Substructure in Kπππ Decays of D Mesons. Dissertation (Ph.D.), California Institute of Technology. doi:10.7907/0wda-j731. https://resolver.caltech.edu/CaltechETD:etd-06062007-122309

Abstract

We determine the resonant substructure of D → K̅πππ decays using a five-dimensional maximum likelihood technique to extract the relative fractions and phases of the amplitudes contributing to the K⁻π⁺π⁺π⁻, K̅⁰π⁺π⁺π⁻, and K̅⁻π⁺π⁺π⁰ final states. We find that two-body decay modes account for about 75% of these decays. We obtain branching ratios for D → K̅a₁, D → K̅*ρ, D → K̅₁(1270)π, D → K̅₁(1400)π, and D⁰ → K̅⁰ω decay modes, as well as several three and four-body decay modes. In the case of D → K̅a₁ and D → K̅*ρ, 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 D⁰ and D⁺ depends on an understanding of two-body hadronic decays.

For the D → K̅*ρ decay modes, we obtain detailed information on the polarization of the K̅* and ρ. This enables us to obtain information on form-factors for D → K̅* and D → ρ transitions, within the context of the factorization hypothesis. Comparison of our results on D → K̅*ρ decays with recent results on semileptonic decays allows us to test the factorization hypothesis.

Thesis Files