# Effects of External Forces in the Kaon System

• Ephraim Fischbach
Chapter

## Abstract

As noted in Chapter 2, the $${{K}^{0}} - {{\bar{K}}^{0}}$$ system can play the role of a sensitive detector for certain types of new forces, because of the naturally small mass scale provided by the K L -K S mass difference Δm. Not all forces which might exist can be detected in the $${{K}^{0}} - {{\bar{K}}^{0}}$$ system, since (to a good approximation) kaons do not couple to certain “charges”, including baryon number (B) and electric charge (Q).This point deserves some additional discussion: Although K 0 and $${{\bar{K}}^{0}}$$ are bound states of charged quarks ($$d\bar{s}{\text{ and }}\bar{d}s$$ respectively), K 0 and $${{\bar{K}}^{0}}$$ have no net electric charge, and hence they will not be influenced by a weak external electromagnetic field. Evidently a similar remark applies to a possible coupling to baryon number. It was for this reason that the source of the proposed “fifth force” was originally assumed to be the hypercharge Y =B + SwhereSis strangeness, since this quantum number would couple to both kaons and ordinary matter.

## Keywords

External Field Decay Mode Lorentz Transformation Ordinary Matter Charged Quark
These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.