New upper limit on the decay η→e⁺e^-

Authors

T. E. Browder, University of Hawaii at Manoa, Honolulu, Hawaii
Kenneth A. Bloom, University of Nebraska-LincolnFollow
CLEO Collaboration

Date of this Version

11-1-1997

Comments

Published by American Physical Society. Phys. Rev. Lett. 80, 2762 (1998). Permission to use. http://prl.aps.org/. Copyright © 1998 American Physical Society.

Abstract

We have searched for the rare decay of the η meson η→e⁺e^- using the CLEO II detector. The η’s were produced in e⁺e^- collisions with 10 GeV center-of-mass energy at the Cornell Electron Storage Ring (CESR). We find with 90% confidence the upper limit on the branching fraction B (η→e⁺e^-)<7.7×10^-5. The application of conventional elementary particle theory to this decay predicts a branching fraction of about 10^-9.