Dispersive construction of two-loop P->3π (P=K,η) amplitudes
Abstract
The branching ratio of the η->3π decay is an important source of information on the value of the quark mass ratio 1/R=(md-mu)/(ms- m). Furthermore, isospin breaking effects in the decays K->3π provide information on the pion scattering lengths. The cusp effect in the K->3π decays is presently being analyzed by the NA48 and KTeV experiments. From the theoretical point of view, these processes have been studied by different methods. We propose a unified and relativistic treatment relying on very general principles, unitarity, analyticity and crossing symmetry, combined with chiral counting, in order to construct model-independent representations of the corresponding amplitudes that are valid at two loops. A general description of the procedure is given and is illustrated in the case of the η decay amplitude in the leading order in the isospin breaking.