Transition to CP conservation and zero Cabibbo angle in strong magnetic fields

Abstract

MOST current theories of particle symmetries assume that violations of these symmetries come about through a spontaneous breaking mechanism which produces non zero expectation values for certain scalar (elementary or composite) fields. As is well known (refs 1–7 and Lebedev Institute Reprint No. 101) these expectation values may make a phase transition to a zero value for certain critical temperatures and possibly also for certain critical external magnetic field strengths H_c, H_C1, H^C₂,… Here we point out that it is conceivable that the charge asymmetry (associated with CP violation) in K_L→π±+l±+ṽ(ν) decays may disappear for fields of ∼ 8 × 10¹⁰ gauss if CP violation is milli-weak in character, and that the Cabibbo angle may be reduced to zero—leading to suppression of certain hyperon decays—in fields of the order of 10¹⁶ gauss. These estimates are so strongly model-dependent that it may be worthwhile in any case, to make a systematic phenomenological search for effects on particle asymmetries of strong magnetic fields of 10⁶ gauss upwards.