Study of 3-prong Hadronic $\tau$ Decays with Charged Kaons

Abstract

Using a sample of 4.7/fb integrated luminosity accumulated with the CLEO-II detector at the Cornell Electron Storage Ring (CESR), we have measured the branching fractions of the tau lepton into $K^{-}{h}^{+}{\pi }^{-}{\nu }_{\tau }$ and $K^{-}{K}^{+}{\pi }^{-}{\nu }_{\tau }$ relative to $h^{-}{h}^{+}{h}^{-}{\nu }_{\tau };K^{-}{h}^{+}{\pi }^{-}{\pi }^0{\nu }_{\tau }$ and $K^{-}{K}^{+}{\pi }^{-}{\pi }^0{\nu }_{\tau }$ relative to $h^{-}{h}^{+}{h}^{-}{\pi }^0{\nu }_{\tau }$. The relative branching fractions are: (5.16+-0.20+-0.50)*$10^{-2}$, (1.52+-0.14+-0.29)*$10^{-2}$, (2.54+-0.44+-0.39)*$10^{-2}$ and $<0.0154$ at 95% C.L., respectively. Coupled with additional experimental information, we use our results to extract information on the structure of three-prong tau decays to charged kaons.

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