CP violation in mixing occurs when
The 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 are
There is only one path to each tagged semileptonic channel, so no direct/mixed decay interference survives. The semileptonic wrong-sign mixing asymmetry is
It isolates CP violation in mixing under the stated assumptions. Allowing direct semileptonic CP violation or wrong-sign probability amplitudes would spoil that isolation.[ref]