rho^0-gamma mixing in the neutral channel pion form factor |F_pi|^2 and its role in comparing e^+ e^- with tau spectral functions

TL;DR

This paper investigates the impact of rho^0-gamma mixing on the pion form factor measurements from e^+e^- and tau decays, showing that correcting for this effect aligns the data and supports the current muon g-2 discrepancy.

Contribution

It introduces a correction for rho^0-gamma mixing in tau decay data, enabling a consistent comparison with e^+e^- data and refining the hadronic vacuum polarization contribution to muon g-2.

Findings

Correcting tau data for rho-gamma mixing aligns it with e^+e^- data.

The combined data confirms the ~3 sigma muon g-2 deviation.

Updated evaluations of muon g-2 using all data sources.

Abstract

We study the effect of rho^0-gamma mixing in e^+e^- to pi^+pi^- and its relevance for the comparison of the square modulus of the pion from-factor |F^(e)_pi|^2, as measured in e^+e^- annihilation experiments, and |F^(tau)_pi|^2 the corresponding quantity obtained after accounting for known isospin breaking effects by an isospin rotation from the tau-decay spectra. After correcting the tau data for the missing rho-gamma mixing contribution, besides the other known isospin symmetry violating corrections, the pi pi I=1 part of the hadronic vacuum polarization contribution to the muon g-2 are fully compatible between tau based and e^+e^- based evaluations. tau data thus confirm result obtained with e^+e^- data. Our evaluation based on all e^+e^- data including more recent BaBar and KLOE data yields a_mu^(had)=690.75(4.72) x 10^{-10} (e^+e^- based), while including tau data we find a_mu^(had)=690.96(4.65) X 10^{-10} (e^+e^-+tau based). This backs the ~3 sigma deviation between theory and experiment. For the tau di-pion branching fraction we find B^{CVC}_{pi pi^0}=25.20 \pm0.0.17\pm0.28 from e^+e^-+CVC, while B_{pi pi^0}=25.34\pm0.0.06\pm0.08 is evaluated directly from the tau spectra.