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The Physics and Prospects of Super-Tau Charm Factories

Alexey A. Petrov, Yangheng Zheng

Abstract

The proposed Super tau-charm factories are a powerful new class of high-luminosity electron-positron colliders operating in the center-of-mass energy range between 2 and 7 GeV, a region that spans thresholds for tau leptons, open-charm hadrons, charmonium and charmonium-like states, hyperons, and light hadrons. With unprecedented data samples, threshold kinematics, and quantum-coherent production, these facilities offer unique opportunities to advance precision tests of the Standard Model and to search for physics beyond it. In this review, we examine the physics prospects of the Super Tau-Charm Facility, focusing on precision charm measurements, CP violation in mesons and baryons, tau lepton properties and rare decays, and nonperturbative QCD phenomena such as hadronization, spectroscopy, and time-like form factors. We also discuss the experimental landscape, technological challenges, and complementarity with existing and planned facilities. Together, these capabilities position super tau-charm factories at the forefront of the precision frontier in particle physics.

The Physics and Prospects of Super-Tau Charm Factories

Abstract

The proposed Super tau-charm factories are a powerful new class of high-luminosity electron-positron colliders operating in the center-of-mass energy range between 2 and 7 GeV, a region that spans thresholds for tau leptons, open-charm hadrons, charmonium and charmonium-like states, hyperons, and light hadrons. With unprecedented data samples, threshold kinematics, and quantum-coherent production, these facilities offer unique opportunities to advance precision tests of the Standard Model and to search for physics beyond it. In this review, we examine the physics prospects of the Super Tau-Charm Facility, focusing on precision charm measurements, CP violation in mesons and baryons, tau lepton properties and rare decays, and nonperturbative QCD phenomena such as hadronization, spectroscopy, and time-like form factors. We also discuss the experimental landscape, technological challenges, and complementarity with existing and planned facilities. Together, these capabilities position super tau-charm factories at the forefront of the precision frontier in particle physics.

Paper Structure

This paper contains 28 sections, 31 equations, 4 figures, 1 table.

Table of Contents

  1. Introduction
  2. Physics Prospects of Super-Tau Charm Factories
  3. Precision Charm Physics
  4. Leptonic and semileptonic charm decays
  5. Rare decays with lepton flavor conservation
  6. Charm meson mixing and CP violation
  7. CP-Violation Studies at the Super Tau--Charm Facility
  8. Theoretical Background
  9. Experimental Advantages of STCF
  10. CP Violation in Charm Decays
  11. Quantum Coherence and CPT Tests
  12. CP Violation in the Tau Sector
  13. Tau Lepton Physics
  14. QCD and hadronic Physics
  15. Light New Physics
  16. ...and 13 more sections

Figures (4)

  • Figure 1: Probing the $c\bar{u}\to e^+ e^-$ vertex with the $D^*(2007)^0$ production in $e^+e^-$ collisions (from Khodjamirian:2015dda).
  • Figure 2: Schematic layout of the Super Tau-Charm Facility
  • Figure 3: Conceptual design diagram of the STCF spectrometer
  • Figure 4: STCF accelerator general layout (Red-highlighted parameters denote the conditions for a potential future upgrade)