ON THE BRANCHING RATIOS OF THE DECAYS OF THE HYPERONS AND THE RATIOS OF THE MEAN LIFE TIMES
J.M. Chen, Th Ho, D.C. Sen, H.Y. Tzu · OSTI OAI (U.S. Department of Energy Office of Scientific and Technical Information) · 1959
The branching ratios for hyperon decay, the ratios of mean life times of the decaying hyperons, and the ratios of the life time of hyperons to that of the K-meson are calculated using the universal Fermi weak interaction of Feynman and Gell-Mann and the strong interaction of Salam. The perturbation theory is used with a cut-off in the region of large momentum. By using the coupling constants of the strong interaction given by Warner and choosing suitable values for the remaining coupling constants, most of these calculations agree fairly well with experiments. The worst result differs f rom experimental values at most by a factor of 2. The theoretical values of the branching ratios of K/sup +/-decay are derived from this set of new coupling constants, showing better agreernent with the experiment than the results obtained previously. These calculations show that the universal Fermi weak interaction of the V-A type gives quite a satisfactory explanation of the decay phenomena of Kmesons and hyperons. It is evident from the calculations that the decays must be regarded as phenomena brought about by the joint action of strong and weak interactions, and that there exist two classes of strong interactions: the very strongmore » and the medium strong. The results favor the assumption that the LAMBDA and SIGMA particles have the same parity. It shows that of the 4 terms of the strong interaction Hamiltonian given by Salam involving the K-meson, at least two terms involve the gamma /sub 5/ matrix. (auth)« less