eta - eta prime Mixing -From electromagnetic transitions to weak decays of charm and beauty hadrons

Abstract

It has been realized for a long time that knowing the eta and eta^prime wave functions in terms of quark and gluon components probes our understanding of non-perturbative QCD dynamics. Great effort has been given to this challenge -- yet no clear picture has emerged even with the most recent KLOE data. We point out which measurements would be most helpful in arriving at a more definite conclusion. A better knowledge of these wave functions will significantly help to disentangle the weight of different decay subprocesses in semi-leptonic decays of D+, Ds^+ and B+ mesons. The resulting insights will be instrumental in treating even non-leptonic B transitions involving eta and eta^prime and their CP asymmetries; thus they can sharpen the case for or against New Physics intervening there.