Monday, January 14, 2019

elementary particles - Physics of K meson


$K^{0}$ meson consists of a $d$ quark and an $\bar{s}$ antiquark. Its antiparticle $\bar{K^{0}}$ consists of an $s$ quark and a $d$ antidown quark.


$$|K^{0}\rangle=|d\bar{s}\rangle$$ $$|\bar{K}^{0}\rangle=|\bar{d}s\rangle$$


There are two versions of $K^{0}$ meson. They have the same mass but different decay lifetimes.


K-zero-short: $$K_{S}^{0}=\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}\left[|K^{0}\rangle+|\bar{K}^{0}\rangle\right]$$ with the observed lifetime $\tau_{S}=90$ ps.


K-zero-long: $$K_{L}^{0}=\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}\left[|K^{0}\rangle-|\bar{K}^{0}\rangle\right]$$ with the observed lifetime $\tau_{L}=50$ ns.


What is the physical interpretation of the minus sign? I know that $\pm 1$ are the eigenvalues of $CP$ operator and $K_{S}^{0}$ and $K_{L}^{0}$ are its eigenstates. But what is the physical difference between $K_{S}^{0}$ and $K_{L}^{0}$ besides that they decay the way they do.




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