Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-particle-physics-course-of-the-university-of-oxford/2017/2/d/solution

Use the explicit charged channels and , labeling the two positive pions as 1,2 and the negative one as 3. With , the opposite-charge pair mass squares have the ranges
Their exact correlated boundaries follow by taking the pair rest-frame angle to its endpoints. For general daughter masses, define . At fixed ,
The charged-pion thresholds give the following numerical comparison:
Parent | | Allowed single-axis interval, | Dalitz area, \ | | to | approximately \ | | to | approximately
The area is about times smaller for the kaon. Including the phase-space prefactor, its integrated labelled three-body phase space is about times smaller; neither comparison predicts a ratio of weak decay widths without the matrix elements.
A intermediate state produces horizontal or vertical bands near or in the charm decay. Scalar pion-pair amplitudes, including broad low-mass -wave contributions and accessible , can also populate the plot. The kaon pair mass cannot exceed , so it cannot contain an on-shell or band; smooth nonresonant and rescattering effects remain possible. Channels containing neutral pions use their supplied mass and shift these boundaries slightly without changing the conclusion. The figure shows kinematic domains and representative accessible bands, not an assumed measured intensity.
Figure 1.
Calculated charged-three-pion Dalitz domains and accessible resonance bands
. Details.

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