Measurements of Semileptonic KL Decay Form Factors

TL;DR

This paper reports precise measurements of semileptonic decay form factors of the KL meson, providing key parameters that improve understanding of kaon decay dynamics and test isospin symmetry.

Contribution

First measurements of KL semileptonic form factors using large data sample, with detailed parametrization and phase space integral evaluation.

Findings

Form factors consistent with K+- results, indicating small isospin breaking.

Measured form factor parameters: lambda+' = 20.64e-3, lambda+'' = 3.20e-3, lambda0 = 13.72e-3.

Calculated decay phase space integrals with uncertainties.

Abstract

We present new measurements of KL semileptonic form factors using data collected in 1997 by the KTeV (E832) experiment at Fermilab. The measurements are based 1.9 million KL->pi e nu and 1.5 million KL->pi mu nu decays. For f+(t), we measure both a linear and quadratic term lambda+' = (20.64 +- 1.75)E-3 and lambda+'' = (3.20 +- 0.69)E-3. For f0(t), we find lambda0 = (13.72 +- 1.31)E-3. These form factors are consistent with K+- form factors, suggesting that isospin symmetry breaking effects are small. We use our measured values of the form factors to evaluate the decay phase space integrals, IK(e) = 0.15350 +- 0.00105 and IK(mu) =0.10165 +- 0.00080, where errors include uncertainties arising from the form factor parametrizations.