Hadronic decays of the D/sub s/ meson

Abstract

The D/sub s//sup +/ is the lowest-lying pseudoscalar meson containing charm and anti-strange quarks. Evidence for this state was first reported in 1977, although more recent observations disagree with some of the early results. Since 1983 the weakly decaying D/sub s//sup +/ has been observed in many experiments. Relative branching fractions have been measured for many non-leptonic decay modes, including D/sub s//sup +/ /yields/ /phi//pi//sup +/, /phi//pi//sup +//pi//sup +//pi//sup /minus//, /bar K/*/sup 0/K/sup +/, and f/sub 0/(975)/pi//sup +/. The absolute branching fractions are estimated in high energy e/sup +/e/sup /minus// annihilation from the observed numbers of reconstructed D/sub s//sup +/ decays and the expected D/sub s//sup +/ production cross section. The lowest-lying vector c/bar s/ meson, the D/sub s/*/sup +/, has also been seen in its decay to /gamma/D/sub s//sup +/. Weak decays of the heavy quark and lepton flavors are relevant to the development of the Standard Model of both the electroweak and the strong interactions. Measurements of charmed particle weak decay are useful for determining the parameter of the Standard Model and for testing phenomenological models which include strong effects. 83 refs., 56 figs., 12 tabs.