Paper detail

Bremsstrahlung simulation in K to pi l^pm nu_l (gamma) decays

In physics simulation chains, the PHOTOS Monte Carlo program is often used to simulate QED effects in decays of intermediate particles and resonances. The program is based on an exact multiphoton phase space. In general, the matrix element is obtained from iterations of a universal kernel and approximations are involved. To evaluate the program precision, it is necessary to formulate and implement within the generator the exact matrix element, which depends on the decay channel. Then, all terms necessary for non-leading logarithms are taken into account. In the present letter we focus on the decay K to pi l^pm nu_l and tests of the PHOTOS Monte Carlo program. We conclude a 0.2% relative precision in the implementation of the hard photon matrix element into the emission kernel, including the case where approximations are used.