Date Awarded

1992

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)

Department

Physics

Advisor

Robert E Welsh

Abstract

This thesis presents the results of a measurement of the branching fraction of the $K\sb{L}\to\mu\bar{\mu}$ decay. This decay is scGIM supressed in the Standard Model, and provides a useful test of that model. Additionally, the degree of deviation from the unitary limit provides a useful test for several other models. The experiment was performed at the Brookhaven National Laboratory Alternating Gradient Synchrotron facility. The apparatus consisted of a two-magnet mass spectrometer, together with dual electromagnetic and muon particle identification systems. A total of 281 $K\sb{L}\to\mu\bar{\mu}$ events were observed. Normalizing to the 15,768 $K\sb{L}\to\pi\bar{\pi}$ events observed results in a branching fraction of $\Gamma(K\sb{L}\to\mu\bar{\mu})/\Gamma(K\sb{L}\to$ all) = (7.6 $\pm$ 0.5) $\times$ 10$\sp{-9}$.

DOI

https://dx.doi.org/doi:10.21220/s2-ztsa-fe04

Rights

© The Author

Included in

Physics Commons

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