- This is an article on Kaon in physics. For the ontology infrastructure of the same name, see KAON.
The neutral Kaons are symmetric and antisymmetric mixtures of the quark combinations down-antistrange and antidown-strange.
The charged kaons are mesons which have a quark composition of up-antistrange for the positive kaon and antiup-strange for the negative kaon. They decay in about 10-8 seconds.
Decay times in this range indicate decay by the weak interaction. None of the decay products has a strange quark, so this decay violates conservation of strangeness and cannot proceed by the strong interaction.
Describing the neutral kaons is much more complex. The K0 and its antiparticle
K0 are identical except for strangeness content. What is actually observed, then, are quantum mixtures of the two, with the same mass but different decay lifetimes. One is called K0short; the other is called K0long. These particles decay into pions by the exchange of two W bosons.
Early history
In 1947, G. D. Rochester and C. C. Butler published two cloud chamber photographs of cosmic ray induced events, one showing what appeared to be a neutral particle decaying into two charged pions, and one which appeared to be be a charged particle decaying into a charged pion and something neutral. The estimated mass of the new particles was very rough, about half a proton's mass. More examples of these "V-particles" were slow in coming.
The first breakthrough was obtained at Cal Tech, where a cloud chamber was taken up Mount Wilson, for greater cosmic ray exposure. In 1950, 30 charged and 4 neutral V-particles were reported. Inspired by this, numerous mountaintop observations were made over the next several years, and by 1953, the following terminology was adopted: "L-meson" meant muon or pion. "K-meson" meant a particle intermediate in mass between the pion and nucleon. "Hyperon" meant any particle heavier than a nucleon.
A wide and sometimes bewildering range of particles were being identified. Uncertainties in masses and lifetimes made it difficult to agree on what was being seen. On the theoretical side, it was very puzzling why their decay lifetimes were so much comparatively longer than their formation times.
Cyclotron technology had progressed to the point that it was possible to artificially generate these new particles in great numbers, and by 1955 consensus was achieved on most of the particles' status.
On the theoretical side, Murray Gell-Mann introduced the notion of weak interaction and strangeness to account for the particles' long lifetimes. He proposed that strangeness was preserved by the strong nuclear force and electromagnetism, but not by the weak force. So the strong force could, starting with strangeness 0, create two particles, with strangeness +1 and −1, virtually instantaneously, but after the particles separated, they could only decay on their own via the much slower acting weak force. The weak force was also claimed to be responsible for beta decay.
The tau-theta puzzle
With the improved measurements and the start of a working theoretical picture, two particles stood out as puzzling. The τ (tau) and θ (theta) particles had been distinguished based on their different decay processes. But the new measurements showed that the two were identical in all aspects except parity, roughly speaking, their internal left/right-handedness. This unusual coincidence was labeled the τ-θ puzzle. Parity conservation was, at the time, accepted as an inherent geometric fact of the world, as all known laws of physics were left/right symmetric.
Several people suggested that parity might not be conserved, but were not taken seriously. A careful review by theoretical physicists Tsung Dao Lee and Chen Ning Yang went further, showing that, while parity conservation had been verified in decays by the strong or electromagnetic interactions, it was untested in the weak interaction. They proposed several possible direct experimental tests. They were almost ignored, but Lee was able to convince his Columbia colleague Chien-Shiung Wu to try it. She needed special cryogenic facilities and expertise, so the experiment was done at the National Bureau of Standards.
In 1956-1957 Wu, E. Ambler, R. W. Hayward, D. D. Hoppes, and R. P. Hudson found a clear violation of parity conservation in the beta decay of cobalt-60. As the experiment was winding down, with doublechecking in progress, Wu informed her colleagues at Columbia of their positive results. Three of them, R. L. Garwin, Leon Lederman, and R. Weinrich modified an existing cyclotron experiment and immediately verified parity violation. They delayed publication until after Wu's group was ready; the two papers appeared back to back.
After the fact, it was noted that an obscure 1928 experiment had in effect reported parity violation in weak decays, but as the appropriate concepts had not been invented yet, it had no impact.
With parity violation established, the τ-θ puzzle was solved, and the two particles were renamed the "K-meson" or "kaon", symbol "K".
Further kaon study
Even with the violation of parity, it was thought that the combination of charge conjugation and parity inversion would leave the system invariant (CP invariance). A subtle experiment by Cronin and Fitch in 1964 showed that there was a small amount of CP violation in the kaon decay.
In quantum field theory, one can prove mathematically that the combination of charge conjugation,
time reversal, and parity inversion (CPT) always leaves the system invariant. CPT invariance has also been directly tested in kaon decay, and no violations have been found. The combination of CPT invariance with CP violation means that T cannot be a physical symmetry. In plain words, there is a built-in "arrow of time" at the microscopic level.
See also
External link