The branching ratio (BR) for the decay K^+ rightarrow pi^+ u bar{ u} is a sensitive probe for new physics. The NA62 experiment at the CERN SPS will measure this BR to within about 10%. To reject the dominant background from channels with final state
photons, the large-angle vetoes (LAVs) must detect photons of energy as low as 200 MeV with an inefficiency of less than 10^-4, as well as provide energy and time measurements with resolutions of 10% and 1 ns for 1 GeV photons. The LAV detectors make creative reuse of lead glass blocks recycled from the OPAL electromagnetic calorimeter barrel. We describe the mechanical design and challenges faced during construction, the characterization of the lead glass blocks and solutions adopted for monitoring their performance, and the development of front-end electronics to allow simultaneous time and energy measurements over an extended dynamic range using the time-over-threshold technique. Our results are based on test-beam data and are reproduced by a detailed Monte Carlo simulation that includes the readout chain.
We present a global analysis of leptonic and semileptonic kaon decay data, including all recent results published by the BNL-E865, KLOE, KTeV, ISTRA+ and NA48 experiments. This analysis, in conjunction with precise lattice calculations of the hadroni
c matrix elements now available, leads to a very precise determination of |Vus| and allows us to perform several stringent tests of the Standard Model.
While measuring the ratio R_K = Gamma(K+e2(gamma))/Gamma(K+mu2(gamma)), the KLOE Collaboration has studied the radiative process Ke2gamma. The ratio of the width for the Ke2gamma decay with a positively polarized photon from structure-dependent radia
tion to the inclusive Kmu2(gamma) width is found to be 1.484(68) 10-5. The observed radiation spectrum agrees with predictions from chiral perturbation theory and is in contrast with predictions based on the light front quark model. This result reduces the contribution to systematic uncertainties on measurements of R_K. In a separate study, KLOE has measured the ratio of the radiative Ke3gamma decay width to the inclusive Ke3(gamma) width to be 924(28) 10-5. The distribution in energy and angle of the radiative photon has been analyzed in an attempt to isolate the signature from interference of the inner-bremsstrahlung and structure-dependent amplitudes.
The P326 experiment at the CERN SPS has been proposed with the purpose of measuring the branching ratio for the decay K^+ to pi^+ u bar{ u} to within 10%. The photon veto system must provide a rejection factor of 10^8 for pi^0 decays. We have explor
ed two designs for the large-angle veto detectors, one based on scintillating tiles and the other using scintillating fibers. We have constructed a prototype module based on the fiber solution and evaluated its performance using low-energy electron beams from the Frascati Beam-Test Facility. For comparison, we have also tested a tile prototype constructed for the CKM experiment, as well as lead-glass modules from the OPAL electromagnetic barrel calorimeter. We present results on the linearity, energy resolution, and time resolution obtained with the fiber prototype, and compare the detection efficiency for electrons obtained with all three instruments.
