PSILOGO

Laboratory for Particle Physics (LTP)


LTP Colloquium

Muon Decay and the Standard Model: Measurement of the Transverse Polarization of the Decay Positrons and its Implications for the Fermi constant and Time Reversal Invariance

Thursday, September 27, 2007, 16:00
WHGA Auditorium

W. Fetscher, ETHZ

Abstract:
Two decades ago it was shown that a selected set of precision experiments in normal and inverse muon decay completely determine the decay interaction, with all leptons being lefthanded. There is still room, however, for extensions of the standard model, all of which have at least partially righthanded couplings. I will report about our measurement of the transverse polarization of the decay positrons which yields improved limits on the decay parameter eta needed for a model-independent determination of the Fermi constant G_F as well as on a possible violation of time reversal invariance in a purely leptonic reaction.