We show that a triple-product correlation in the neutron radiative β-decay rate, characterized by the kinematical variable η ≡ (l e × l ν ) · k, where n(p) → p(p ) + e − (l e ) + ν e (l ν ) + γ(k), isolates the pseudo-Chern-Simons term found by Harvey, Hill, and Hill as a consequence of the baryon vector current anomaly and SU(2) L ×U(1) Y gauge invariance at low energies. The correlation appears if the imaginary part of the coupling constant is nonzero, so that its observation at anticipated levels of sensitivity would reflect the presence of sources of CP violation beyond the Standard Model. We compute the size of the asymmetry in n → pe −ν e γ decay as a function of the coupling, estimate the effect of Standard-Model final-state interactions, and discuss the role nuclear processes can play in discovering the effect.
IntroductionHarvey, Hill, and Hill have found that unexpected interactions involving the nucleon N, photon γ, and weak gauge bosons at low energies emerge from gauging the axial anomaly of QCD under the full electroweak symmetry of the Standard Model (SM) [1,2]. In this contribution we consider how such interactions can be isolated through a triple-product momentum correlation in neutron radiative β-decay. The correlation is both parity-and naively timereversal-odd, so that it vanishes in the Standard Model save for effects induced by final-state interactions (FSI). Nevertheless, the correlation can be generated by sources of CP violation beyond the Standard Model, and such couplings, being spin-independent, are not constrained by the nonobservation of the neutron electric dipole moment (EDM). We consider the sorts of limits on its strength which can be determined at existing and anticipated facilities, as well as the size of induced correlations from known FSI. We also briefly consider the possibility of nuclear β-decay studies as well as the prospects for muon-induced reaction studies.
Anomalous interactions at low energiesThe study of the low-energy spectrum of quantum chromodynamics (QCD) reveals light, pseudoscalar mesons which we interpret as the Nambu-Goldstone bosons of a spontaneously broken chiral symmetry, so that in two-flavor QCD, e.g., SU(2) L ×SU(2) R → SU(2) V [3,4]. A chiral theory of mesons built on this symmetry is incomplete; the explicit inclusion of the axial anomaly, vis-a-vis the Wess-Zumino-Witten (WZW) term [5,6], is required in order to describe observed processes such as KK → 3π and π 0 → γγ [7]. The latter reflects the nonconservation of the axial current and hence the presence of the axial anomaly [8,9]. If we study the gauge invariance of the WZW term in