The Physics of Hadronic Tau Decays
| dc.creator | Davier, M. | |
| dc.creator | Hocker, A. | |
| dc.creator | Zhang, Z. | |
| dc.date | 2005-07-07 | |
| dc.date | 2006-02-04 | |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2026-07-07T11:26:44Z | |
| dc.date.available | 2026-07-07T11:26:44Z | |
| dc.description | Hadronic tau decays represent a clean laboratory for the precise study of quantum chromodynamics (QCD). Observables (sum rules) based on the spectral functions of hadronic tau decays can be related to QCD quark-level calculations to determine fundamental quantities like the strong coupling constant, parameters of the chiral Lagrangian, |V_us|, the mass of the strange quark, and to simultaneously test the concept of quark-hadron duality. Using the best available measurements and a revisited analysis of the theoretical framework, the value alpha_s(m_tau) = 0.345 +- 0.004[exp] +- 0.009[theo] is obtained. Taken together with the determination of alpha_s(m_Z) from the global electroweak fit, this result leads to the most accurate test of asymptotic freedom: the value of the logarithmic slope of 1/alpha_s(s) is found to agree with QCD at a precision of 4%. In another approach, the tau spectral functions can be used to determine hadronic quantities that, due to the nonperturbative nature of long-distance QCD, cannot be computed from first principles. An example for this is the contribution from hadronic vacuum polarization to loop-dominated processes like the anomalous magnetic moment of the muon. This article reviews the measurements of nonstrange and strange tau spectral functions and their phenomenological applications. | |
| dc.description | 89 pages, 32 figures; final version accepted for publication by Reviews of Modern Physics | |
| dc.identifier | https://arxiv.org/abs/hep-ph/0507078 | |
| dc.identifier | http://arxiv.org/abs/hep-ph/0507078 | |
| dc.identifier | Rev.Mod.Phys.78:1043-1109,2006 | |
| dc.identifier | doi:10.1103/RevModPhys.78.1043 | |
| dc.identifier.uri | http://salesiana.dossiersoluciones.com/handle/123456789/195923 | |
| dc.subject | High Energy Physics - Phenomenology | |
| dc.title | The Physics of Hadronic Tau Decays | |
| dc.type | text |