Past exam of the particle physics course of the University of Oxford 2018 3 c ii Solution 2026-10-25
CP violation in mixing occurs whenThe flavour-transition probabilities are proportional to for , and for the reverse. Their inequality remains when decay probability amplitudes themselves conserve CP. The coefficients multiplying the mixed-decay terms in the rate equations encode this asymmetry.
Assume the usual semileptonic flavour selection rule , negligible wrong-sign decay probability amplitudes, and equal magnitudes for CP-conjugate allowed probability amplitudes. Then is reached directly only from , and only from . Put . The four rates areThere is only one path to each tagged semileptonic channel, so no direct/mixed decay interference survives. The semileptonic wrong-sign mixing asymmetry isIt isolates CP violation in mixing under the stated assumptions. Allowing direct semileptonic CP violation or wrong-sign probability amplitudes would spoil that isolation.[ref]
Review of Particle Physics by Particle Data Group (2022). CP violation in the Quark Sector, §13.1.3, equations (13.22)–(13.24): mixing and semileptonic wrong-sign asymmetry