Gravity and CP violation

Abstract

The non-conservation of CP symmetry in the decay of neutralK mesons was discovered almost three decades ago. The origin of this unique phenomenon is still not well understood. There have been attempts to link it with energy splitting of the K and K in the earth's gravitational field. In this essay we examine these attempts critically. A more natural way in which a gravitational field can couple asymmetrically to the K - K system is through torsion, which coupling to isospin can, in addition to parity violation, also give rise to a C violation. The magnitude of this effect is estimated in the vicinity of a kaon and found to give a CP-violating parameter of the right value. Moreover, it is predicted that the CP violating parameter for the new system B - B is much smaller 10/sup–6. Implications for baryogenesis in the early universe is also studied. In this paper we work not with the Newtonian gravitational constantG but with a torsion coupling constant, which is energy-dependent and can be related to the Fermi weak interaction constant.