A strategy to study the role of the charm quark in explaining the Delta{I}=1/2 rule

Abstract

We present a strategy designed to separate several possible origins of the well-known enhancement of the Delta{I}=1/2 amplitude in non-leptonic kaon decays. In particular, we seek to disentangle the contribution of physics at the typical QCD scale (soft-gluon exchange) from the effects at the scale of the charm quark mass. This is achieved by considering QCD with an unphysically light charm quark, so that the theory possesses an approximate SU(4)_L x SU(4)_R chiral symmetry. By computing the relevant operator matrix elements and monitoring their values as the charm quark mass departs from the SU(4)-symmetric situation, the role of the charm quark can be assessed. We study the influence of the charm quark mass in Chiral Perturbation Theory. First results from lattice simulations in the SU(4)-symmetric limit are also discussed.