arXiv subjects
Publications and source records attributed to I. M. Nugent.
We present the results of a partial upgrade to the Monte Carlo event generator TAUOLA using Resonance Chiral Theory for the two and three meson final states. These modes account for 88% of total hadronic width of the tau meson. The first results of the model parameters have been obtained using Preliminary BaBar data for the three pion mode.
In this paper we document the modifications introduced to the previous version of the Resonance Chiral Lagrangian current ({\it Phys.Rev.} {\bf D86} (2012) 113008) of the $τ^\pm \to π^\pm π^\pm π^\mp ν_τ$ decay which enable the one dimensional distributions measured by the BaBar collaboration to be well modeled. The main change required to model the data is the addition of the $σ$ resonance. Systematic errors, theoretical and experimental ones, limitations due to fits of one dimensional distributions only, and resulting difficulties and statistical/systematic errors for fitted parameters are addressed. The current and fitting environment is ready for comparisons with the fully exclusive experimental data. The present result for $τ^\pm \to π^\pm π^\pm π^\mp ν_τ$ is encouraging for work on other $τ$ decay modes and Resonance Chiral Lagrangian based currents.
We present a partial upgrade of the Monte Carlo event generator TAUOLA with the two and three hadron decay modes using the theoretical models based on Resonance Chiral Theory. These modes account for 88% of total hadronic width of the tau meson. First results of the model parameters have been obtained using BaBar data for three pion mode.
The new hadronic currents implemented in the TAUOLA library are obtained in the unified and consistent framework of Resonance Chiral Theory: a Lagrangian approach in which the resonances exchanged in the hadronic tau decays are active degrees of freedom included in a way that reproduces the low-energy results of Chiral Perturbation Theory. The short-distance QCD constraints on the imaginary part of the spin-one correlators yield relations among the couplings that render the theory predictive. In this communication, the obtaining of the two- and three-meson form factors is sketched. One of the criticisms to our framework is that the error may be as large as 1/3, since it is a realization of the large-N_C limit of QCD in a meson theory. A number of arguments are given which disfavor that claim pointing to smaller errors, which would explain the phenomenological success of our description in these decays. Finally, other minor sources of error and current improvements of the code are discussed.
We describe several studies to measure the charged track reconstruction efficiency and asymmetry of the BaBar detector. The first two studies measure the tracking efficiency of a charged particle using $τ$ and initial state radiation decays. The third uses the $τ$ decays to study the asymmetry in tracking, the fourth measures the tracking efficiency for low momentum tracks, and the last measures the reconstruction efficiency of $K_S^0$ particles. The first section also examines the stability of the measurements vs BaBar running periods.
We update the hadronic tau determination of |V_{us}|, showing that current strange branching fractions produce results 2-3 sigma lower than 3-family unitarity expectations. Issues related to the size of theoretical uncertainties and results from an alternate, mixed tau-electroproduction sum rule determination (which, by construction, produces a much smaller theoretical uncertainty), are also considered.